Ex Astris Gloria
by alienyouthct
Summary: When the true nature of the Veil of Death is finally discovered, Harry and Luna embark on a journey unlike anything they could have possibly imagined. An authorized reimagining of Lightning among the Stars. "f*ck this is good! and fun! I don't want to read the story this is based on because nothing shall distract me from this!" - papiliokaze
1. Chapter 1

Title: _Ex Astris Gloria  
_Author: JoeHundredaire  
Rating: R/FR18  
Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling owns the _Harry Potter_ universe. Wish they were mine so I could do increasingly nonsensical things to them and watch my bank account get steadily larger, but sadly not mine. BioWare owns _Mass Effect_, its sequels, its characters, its worlds, and all related concepts. And Disney and Pixar own their lovely ladies. Not mine, don't sue, et cetera and so forth.  
Summary: When the true nature of the Veil of Death is finally discovered, Harry and Luna embark on a journey unlike anything they could have possibly imagined.  
Joe's Note: By now, people should really know better than to go 'if you think you can do better, do it'. Because I just take that as a challenge, and challenges are meant to be accepted. To clear some of the foul air floating around the recent chapters of his fic, I am one of people - if not THE person - who tore apart a half-dozen major holes in _Lightning among the Stars_ by Leonineus. He was then dumb enough to post screenshots of our private conversations to a fiction group we were both a member of, at which point I degraded him further for being a whiny bitch about it and then others tossed in their two cents. He threw up his hands and told me to do better if I could before taking his lengthy sulk. So I am.  
Dedications &amp; Thanks: To Nicholas, Alexander, Howard, MJ, Daniel, Christopher, Jason, Chris, George, Koby, Judedeath, Ken, Thyatira, William, Wil, Thomas, Jack, Pat, Chris, Mitch, and Jess for sponsoring me on , and making it easier for me to spend more of my time writing. Additional thanks go to the incomparable LogicalPremise for his amazing set of references covering many untouched facets of the _Mass Effect_ universe, as well as listening to me ramble about ideas for the future of this story.

* * *

Oh, the difference that a decade could make.

That was the thought running through Harry Potter's mind as he deftly navigated the almost labyrinthine halls of the Department of Mysteries, making his way toward the Death Chamber. As a fifth year, he'd stumbled upon the chamber - and the veil within - while sneaking into the Ministry with his friends. Nowadays, he was an Unspeakable and being well paid to come in each day and prod at the thing. Well, prod it in between helping his peers untangle any number of other mysterious magical items that had turned up during post-war raids of Voldemort's safe houses.

Oh, the difference that a decade could make.

A decade ago, he'd been coming off his recently failed relationship with Cho Chang and wondering why girls had to be so contrary and downright confusing. These days, he… still couldn't make heads or tails of how the female mind worked. That probably had something to do with why he'd been married - and divorced - twice in a decade. The first time had been to Ginny Weasley, and it had been an unmitigated disaster. While superficially similar enough, they turned out to have very different ideas of where a relationship should go - namely, the fact that he was hoping to settle down and raise a child or three while she considering buying a crup together to be too serious of a commitment - as well as differing opinions on a number of small things that added up after awhile. Taking Ron and Hermione's advice about how 'opposites attract', on the other hand, had led to his marriage to Daphne Greengrass. The less said about those three years of his life, the better.

He'd lost a sizable portion of his wealth in that particular split, but it didn't really bother Harry. It was all blood money as far as he was concerned, dumped in his lap after good men and women died to protect him from himself and Dumbledore's machinations. He still had enough to live on if he chose to leave the Ministry, he still had Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, and he still had his health and magic. That was good enough for him.

And while Harry still didn't understand how the female mind worked? That didn't really seem to matter when it came to his current relationship, because he was pretty sure that nobody knew how his newest fiancée's mind worked. Including her father, who was strangely amenable to the idea of his daughter dating the man who had gotten the family home blown up during the war. The fact that they - and Hermione - worked together in the Department of Mysteries meant that Harry didn't have to hide anything from her, and his long hours at work were spent with her. Between that and the bloody spectacular sex, Harry had high hopes that the third time would be the charm.

Now if only they could figure out what the damnable Veil of Death was actually meant for…

* * *

When Harry finally entered the Death Chamber, exactly thirty seconds before his shift was due to start - just as he had every day for the last six years - Hermione was already seated beside the Veil, waving her wand at the stone arch while simultaneously dictating to a charmed quill that scribbled away on a nearby notepad. Harry allowed himself a moment to marvel at her multitasking capabilities before descending to the center of the pit, making sure to circle around and come at her from where she could see him out of the corner of her eye rather than risk spooking her. "So, two questions. One: what's so fascinating this morning? And two: is that the same shirt you were wearing yesterday?"

"Yes, fine, you caught me. I've been here all night. But it's for a good reason." Looking up from her work, Hermione met Harry's gaze with sparkling - albeit bloodshot - eyes. "I think I've finally cracked the secret of the veil. Or at least cracked the secret of the secret of the veil." Considering that if she was right, Hermione would have accomplished in a matter of years what entire teams couldn't do over the course of their natural lives? She definitely had Harry's attention. "Just out of curiosity, I used a bog standard miner's charm on the arch. I thought maybe we'd find out there was something inside it; that it was a giant wand or something along those lines. But while I was wrong, it brought my attention back to something that we've ignored because we were told they're useless."

Harry leaned in as Hermione turned back to the arch, tapping the tip of her wand against a series of lines that had been carefully carved into the stone. "Runes. Elder Futhark at that. And it's not that they're useless, at least according to Croaker, but there's no use in trying to translate them because the stone is so weathered that you can't get a clean reading of the runes to work from."

Nodding rapidly, Hermione let out an uncharacteristic giggle - which let Harry know exactly how sleep deprived his friend was - before hopping up out of her chair and grabbing Harry by the wrist. She dragged him across the front of the arch, tapping her wand against another set of runes, and then circled around to the back of that side of the arch and did it a third time. "None of the runes are pristine, so no one set is usable for translation. But… but! They're all the same. So it's just a matter of writing down all the runes and overlapping them to create one complete copy. Or rather, it was. I've already moved on to the translation stage. Which is slow going, since long dead North Germanic dialects are hardly my area of expertise."

"Hermione? Admitting that something isn't her area of expertise?" Harry looked back over his shoulder and smiled as he watched his fiancée descend the steps that lined the perimeter of the Death Chamber. Luna Lovegood offered him a wink even as Hermione let out a huff of exasperation, the blonde gently scratching her nails down the back of the crumple-horned snorkack she had cradled against her chest. "I do believe this is one of the signs of the apocalypse. Somewhere between Ronald managing to chew with his mouth closed and Molly Weasley not sound condescending when she talks to you."

Rolling her eyes, Hermione released her grip on Harry and made her way back over to where her notepad and quill were waiting… and then muttered something distinctly uncomplimentary under her breath as she scratched out several lines. "I do not need that going into the official archives, thank you very much. And while I may not know everything, I did manage to help you find that snorkack." Luna opened her mouth to argue, only to be cut off by Hermione. "Ah ah ah. You wouldn't have found it without me and you know it. So shush."

Luna pouted as she snuggled up against Harry's side, raising the snorkack into the air so she could look it in all four eyes. "Don't you listen to her, Wednesday. I managed to breed you all by myself… from the two snorkacks she helped me find. But still! You're all mine! Aren't you? Aren't you?" The snorkack regarded her impassively for a few seconds, nose twitching, and then turned so it could sink its teeth into her right thumb. "Ouch! Why you little-"

Doing his best not to laugh - mainly because he had absolutely no desire to end up banished to his very uncomfortable couch for a night or three - Harry turned his attention back to Hermione and her frenetic scribbling. "So I'm guessing 'how does it work?' won't be answered for a while, but do we at least know 'what is it?'. The Ministry has used it to execute people in the past, but I can't belief that was its original purpose. There are so many ways to kill someone that are easier and faster. Why waste the time and energy it took to construct this?"

"Because if it wasn't damaged - or if they'd had Unbreakable Charms back when this was made - it wouldn't kill people. It would teleport them. Through all four dimensions." Waving her wand, Hermione summoned a lump of clay from a nearby cart and pressed it into place against a damaged portion of the arch before transfiguring it to match the stone. With that accomplished, she began carving a set of runes into the unblemished stone, eyes darting back and forth between her notes and her work. "Like I said, I still don't have a decent translation for the writings but I definitely recognize 'space' and 'time' and 'move'. It's a bloody Viking TARDIS is what it is."

Harry glanced over at Luna and mouthed 'muggle thing' before eyeing the arch again. "So then it's bigger on the inside?" Hermione turned away from what she was doing and shot him a mystified look, making Harry sigh. "I have seen _Doctor Who_, you know. I know exactly what you're talking about. And so what I want to know is… is there a chance that there's some kind of storage pocket on the other side? Like multi-compartment trunks or your purse. If you undo whatever damage has been done, is Sirius going to be in there? Are there going to be a bunch of really confused Vikings in there? Or is it more like the stargate?"

"How do you know about the stargate?"

"The same way as you: we've got Sky over at Grimmauld Place now, and Luna and I like to watch some of the sci-fi programming on Sky 1. _Stargate SG-1_ is a particular favorite of Luna's; I'm a bit more fond of _Atlantis_ myself. Can we focus on the question, though?"

Hermione shook her head before turning back to consult her notes. "I honestly don't know. I haven't seen anything in the runes that would indicate a storage function, though, so my hypothesis would be that it's closer to the stargate. The tribe's seiðkona would likely use her own magic to activate the Veil and set a destination, and then the warriors would pass through. It would certainly explain their historical dominance; how do you beat a people who can send reinforcements to five seconds before the battle started?"

Well wasn't that just neat? And if she fixed it, it meant that Harry could send either himself or trusted others to save… nobody. Because the smallest action could cause unforeseen repercussions, and what would happen to the timeline if something they did via the arch got Hermione killed before she could repair it and send people back? Better to not muck with such things, Harry realized. Which was why Time Turners had so many restrictions on them. And… a loud burping noise pulled Harry from his thoughts, and he took a step back as all the runes on the arch flared to life simultaneously. A second later, the tattered black curtain in the middle of the arch started to flutter a bit faster in an invisible breeze. "Hermione? What did you do?"

"I don't know, all I did was…" Trailing off, Hermione's expression became one of horror. "Even you wouldn't be able to push enough magic into the Veil to activate it from a fully inert state. And mixing your own magic into something empowered by others could be catastrophic. Okay, new hypothesis: there was a controlling artifact that allowed a tribe's seiðkona to direct the Veil. Which we don't have. So now that I've fixed the runes, it's turned on and there's no 'pause' button for us to press. Oh dear. What do we do?"

Harry let out a sigh as he drew the Elder Wand and waved it in front of himself, creating a barrier that nullified the slight suction that was already tugging at his clothes. "Get out of here, Hermione. We're going to need you to figure this whole thing out, and you can't if you get pulled through with us." Hermione's eyes lit up in indignation, but Harry slashed his free hand through the air to cut her off. "No! I can hold a barrier longer than anyone else here and you know it. And if I go through… well, I don't think you'll want to be here if Luna's here and I'm gone. So we'll stay and do what we can. Go tell Croaker. See if there are more pieces to this somewhere. See if there are old records. Pull a Hermione. Make the impossible possible. That's your job. Just like this is ours."

After staring at him for a few seconds, Hermione nodded and dashed forward, pulling him into a tight hug. "I will. I'll fix this, Harry, I swear. Good luck." Despite their occasional collaborations, she wasn't nearly as close to the blonde and so Hermione settled for giving Luna a solemn nod before turning and hurrying her way across the pit and then up the steps to safety.

As soon as she was gone, Harry turned and fired off a series of locking charms at the door before adding a few reinforcing charms to make sure she didn't simply blow it off the hinges to get back in. After all, while Hermione was a very smart young woman, she was also about to lose a good friend. The last thing he needed was her breaking down and doing something incredibly noble and stupid. That was his job, thank you very much. Once he was sure that he and Luna wouldn't be interrupted, Harry finally slashed his wand and canceled the shield that was holding the growing effects of the now-active arch at bay. "I still can't believe that the only person I know with any real talent for divination cheated his way through four years of the class."

Luna offered a grin and a shrug as she pulled a shrunken baby carrier out of her bag and enlarged it, passing Wednesday off to Harry long enough to slide her arms through the straps and then secure things behind her back. Taking the snorkack back, she pressed a kiss to the top of Wednesday's head before securing her familiar in place against her chest. "Maybe Ronald could See that Professor Trelawney would accept his work and so that's why he did it? And you can't deny that it's right handy. If it wasn't for him, we would have been caught completely off-guard by this."

"I wasn't complaining. Just think it's funny." Harry patted at his pockets, checking to make sure everything was there. Shrunken trunk full of clothes and personal belongings, check. Shrunken trunk full of potions, ingredients, old wands, books, and assorted magical knickknacks, check. Two shrunken trunks full of money, check. One snorkack, secured for transit. Time to get the show on the road. "Do you think he's right about where we're going to end up? On a whole other planet, some time in the future?"

Striding forward confidently, Luna shot a very familiar and very wicked little grin back over her shoulder at Harry. "If we do, I hope there are green-skinned space babes. Or blue ones. I do so like the color blue." Stopping a few inches away from the rapidly fluttering curtain, the blonde spun in place, blew Harry a kiss, and then fell backward through the Veil.

Harry tilted his head back and stared up at the ceiling. "Merlin save me from adorable hypersexual blondes." Taking a deep breath, he dashed forward and plowed through the Veil, boldly going where no man had - voluntarily - gone before.


	2. Chapter 2

Joe's Note: As you probably noticed, I've made a whole host of characterization changes. To each their own and all that, but I don't really see the point of mass character assassination especially when they're not going to feature in the plot. And I couldn't even justify Ron because by switching Harry's love interest, he became irrelevant to the first chapter. I also redid Ginny's backstory a bit, because while I can respect a desire to follow Rowling's canon for as long as possible before deviating? I think there are more reasonable ways to split up Harry and Ginny so you can pair Harry with someone new than 'Ginny's a whore'.  
Dedications &amp; Thanks: To Nicholas, Alexander, Howard, MJ, Daniel, Christopher, Jason, Chris, George, Koby, Judedeath, Ken, Thyatira, William, Wil, Thomas, Jack, Pat, Chris, Mitch, and Jess for sponsoring me on , and making it easier for me to spend more of my time writing. Additional thanks go to the incomparable LogicalPremise for his amazing set of references covering many untouched facets of the _Mass Effect_ universe, as well as listening to me ramble about ideas for the future of this story.

* * *

If there were any 'green-skinned space babes', Harry decided as he sat up with a groan, he hoped that they were nowhere near where he and Luna had ended up. Because wherever they'd managed to land was a truly wretched and disgusting place, and that was coming from a person who had spent years cleaning up after the Dursleys. When an air-freshening charm failed to make a dent in the aroma that had him on the edge of vomiting, Harry switched to a Bubble-Head Charm before slowly climbing to his feet. "Luna?"

"Bubble-Head Charm, if you don't mind?" It took him a moment to spot Luna through the disgusting, greenish smog that was in all likelihood the source of the foul odor, but then Harry fired off the requested spell in her direction. "Oh, that's much better. Thank Merlin you still have your wand." Rising from the ground, Luna did her best to brush her off before revealing why she wasn't trying to clean herself up with magic… or capable of casting her own protection against the disgusting smell. Her wand - her original wand, which she'd spent days searching through Malfoy Manor for after the end of the war - had been snapped in half during their journey from London to… wherever they were. "Please cast the charm on Wednesday, too; I don't want her breathing this mess. We'll save repairing my wand for later. Wherever we are, I doubt it's magical and so running around with our wands out casting spells is probably a terrible idea."

Harry nodded and added some breathing protection to Luna's furred and feathered little friend before looking down at himself. "Can I at least use magic to clean us up since there's nobody else here to see it?"

"…that would be ever so lovely, yes."

Even with the Bubble-Head Charm keeping the stench at bay, Harry was not at all sad to see the disgusting mess of mixed solids and liquids disappear as he vanished the mess from his clothes. Turning to Luna, he repeated the process before cleaning up Wednesday as best he could. It was only then that he realized that they had an audience… an inhuman audience at that. Which shouldn't have been a surprise, now that Harry thought about it, given Ron had predicted they'd end up on another world as a part of their jump into the future.

But while Harry was familiar with a wide variety of magical beings and beasts, the pack of beings slowly approaching them were unlike anything he had ever seen. It was like someone had crossbred a goblin with a dragon, mated their child with a piranha, enlarged the resulting offspring to human size, and then skinned it alive before sticking on some extra pieces just to make it look even meaner. At the same time, Harry knew from personal experience that not everything that looked intimidating actually was - Hagrid, for instance - and so he forcibly suppressed his instinct to lash out to protect himself and Luna. "Hello?"

Whether or not they could understand him, what emerged from the mouth of the leader of the pack was completely incomprehensible to Harry. Looking to Luna for help merely earned him a shake of her head; despite her greater experience with languages, she was just as helpless here as he was. When one of them drew what looked far too much like a gun for his comfort, though, Harry upgraded the situation from 'potentially dangerous' to 'quite likely life-threatening'. Sliding into cover behind him, Luna brought one hand up to rest between his shoulders as she leaned forward. "I've changed my mind about you running around casting spells, if that's okay with you."

"Yeah." Harry brought the Elder Wand up as he slipped into a combat stance, watching warily as the rest of newcomers drew guns of their own. "I'm pretty sure I'm okay with that."

* * *

While Captain Preitor Gavorn was a turian who was largely content with his lot in life, there was one thing he would have changed if he could: eliminating the regular anti-vorcha patrols he was forced to undertake. While he understood why his boss wanted them deterred before they could even reach his usual post at the front of her club, it didn't make dealing with them on their home turf any safer or easier. For a short time, he'd managed to hire a dedicated vorcha removal team to keep the neighborhood around the club clear, but eventually the funding had been pulled. It was his own fault for offering to cover medical care for those hurt on duty, he'd been told. And so now he was stuck doing the job with his subordinates, instead of dumping it off on disposable mercenaries.

Slowly making his way down one of the back streets that allowed privileged individuals to come and go from Afterlife's VIP section unnoticed, Gavorn was pulled from his thoughts as a handful of vorcha went tumbling through the air in front of him, forcing him to lean backward to avoid getting raked across the face by one's claws. They hit the wall across from the alley they'd come flying out of with a series of dull thuds, slowly sliding their way down to drop to the ground in a pile. As the vorcha at the top of the pile began climbing to its feet, Gavorn reached back over his shoulder and drew his Phaeston, the assault rifle whirring softly as it expanded in his hands. Before he could so much as bark a warning, though, much less take a shot, a bright red bolt of energy slammed into the pile.

The vorcha exploded.

The barrel of Gavorn's rifle dipped as he stared at the bloody smear that had formerly been a half dozen vorcha in disbelief. That… had been no weapon he was familiar with, and he was familiar with a great many thanks to his years working security on Omega. Neither a grenade nor a missile, and while most mass accelerator weapons could be modified with explosive rounds, that didn't explain the size of the explosion… or the red glow. His sense of disbelief only grew when the culprit emerged from the alley: a young human male who appeared to be armed with nothing more than a stick that was glowing at the tip. Trailing behind him was a slender blonde woman who appeared to be unarmed… but who was transporting some sort of bizarre animal in one of the child carriers that Gavorn had sometimes seen human females use with their young.

Well, Gavorn thought with a sigh, at least it wasn't the Collectors again. Humans were something he knew how to deal with. Raising his free hand, he issued a series of commands to his subordinates via hand signals before bringing his assault rifle back up to point at the human. "Stop right there! What did you do to those vorcha?"

* * *

Well, he was still facing unfamiliar beings armed with futuristic guns but at least these ones seemed more civilized than the last batch. Granted they only seemed defensive rather than aggressive because he was projecting his own human mannerisms onto them, Harry mused, but at least they weren't lunging and trying to bite him. So even if they were aggressive, they were at least a civilized aggressive. That being said? Until he figured out exactly what he was dealing with, he was keeping Luna safely behind him. While she was far from helpless most of the time - and had even saved his arse a few times with her far wider repertoire of spells - all the knowledge in the world couldn't save her as long as her wand was broken.

Running his eyes over the group, Harry noticed something interesting. Despite consisting of at least three species, their armor all matched and their weapons looked similar too. Hmm. He had just killed a bunch of… somethings. Perhaps this was local law enforcement, responding to the situation? If so - and assuming they weren't terribly corrupt - they might even be able to help him and Luna figure out where - and when - they were. There was just one problem. "What did you say? I can't understand you." The armored, avian-like being that seemed to be the leader of the new arrivals spoke again, but its language was just as alien the second time around. "I… don't… understand… you." Getting desperate, Harry tried a gentle wandless legilimency probe toward the being, but found himself running into the same barrier as with verbal communication: a complete lack of comprehension. Its mind was completely foreign to Harry on a level he hadn't experienced even with magical beings from Earth, preventing him from making heads or tails of what he was finding. The word 'aria' seemed to feature regularly and prominently, but what did opera have to do with anything?

After a few more fruitless exchanges between them, the avian being gave up and reached around to attach its weapon to the back of its armor. With its companions covering it, it pressed something that caused a glowing orange construct to materialize around his left forearm. Another poke materialized a keyboard, and then it began typing away at the keys. A decidedly artificial voice emerged that, while no more understandable, was at least recognizable. "Chto vy delayete chtoby te vorka?" Russian, or a similar Slavic language. They were getting closer to something Harry could understand. Then came a phrase in some variety of Chinese - quite possibly a Wu dialect, since it reminded Harry of listening to Su cuss when things went wrong at work - and then finally… "What did you do to those vorcha?"

At least now Harry had a name to go with his attackers. And he was starting to lean more and more toward this group being law enforcement; while the voice was obviously emotionless, the question was a simple interrogative rather than an accusation. Hopefully that meant he wasn't on the verge of having to fight for their lives… again. "Self-defense. I tried to drive them off but they wouldn't stop trying to attack my fiancée and I. I thought maybe giving them a bit of a harder push would put some fear into them, but when they started getting back up…"

"Vorcha are too stupid to feel fear. Or learn things. Putting them down for good is the only way to deal with them." The being's words elicited noises from its companions that were - while not laughter by human standards - unmistakably noises of good humor. One look quelled them, and the leader of the group returned to typing on his glowing arm… computer… thing. "I don't care why you did it. Killing them means six less vorcha I need to take care of. I asked how you did it. I've never seen a weapon like that before."

Evidently Luna had been right in her assumption that areas should be considered non-magical until proven otherwise. So much for his hopes that here in the future, the wizarding world had integrated into society as a whole and magic was now known to the general public. Harry thought for a moment before deciding on a way to simultaneously deflect the question while finding out more about where they were. "To be fair? I've never seen someone who looks like you before." Someone rather than something, because if there was one thing Harry had learned over the years, it was never to refer to something smart enough to converse with you as a 'thing'.

Except for portraits and mirrors, but that was a whole other kettle of fish.

The question seemed to catch the being off-guard. It stood there staring at Harry for almost a minute, mandibles twitching, and then began typing furiously on his computer. "You've never met a turian before? Or at least seen one of us? Even if you're from some isolated human colony, you would have run into us the moment you set foot on Omega."

"You'd think so, wouldn't you?" Inwardly, Harry was cursing up a storm. While on one hand, he now had a name for one of the three races he was facing… he had evidently just exposed exactly how unusual he and Luna were. Bugger. Maybe he would have been better off admitting to being a wizard? No helping it now, though. Best to keep moving. "Well then, I'm sure just calling you 'turian' would be awfully rude. My name is Harry Potter. My companion's name is Luna Lovegood. And you are..?"

"Captain Gavorn. One of my jobs is to patrol this area and keep the vorcha pushed out of where the civilized beings lived. Or what passes for civilized beings here on Omega." That elicited another round of laughter from Gavorn's associates, making him look back at them and bark out something in his native tongue. Their fun brought to an end, the group drew their own weapons and began spreading out through the area. "Now… I don't know who you are, what you're hiding, how you got here, or why you don't have any kind of translator on you. But since dealing with you is above my pay grade, I'm not even going to try and find out. We're going to see Aria."

And this was why they weren't supposed to read the minds of people who thought in foreign tongues, Harry mused, much less the minds of other species. He'd assumed that Gavorn was a music buff. He'd quite obviously assumed wrong. "And if we don't want to go see 'Aria'?"

Rather unexpectedly, the question just seemed to amuse Gavorn. "You're somehow ignorant of basic facts of life, don't have a translator, probably don't have any money… do you have somewhere better to be?" Point. "Now let's go. Sooner I drop you off, the sooner I can get back to work, and the sooner I can go home to my mate."

With that, conversation came to an abrupt halt as Gavorn turned and walked away. Harry exchanged a look with Luna before giving chase, the blonde easily matching his pace as they followed their guide through the streets of 'Omega'. Whatever - or wherever - that was. "No green-skinned space babes so far, but we do have armored space chickens, lizard people, and T-rex turtles. Oh, and the vorcha. That's got to count for something, yeah?"

"I suppose. I can't wait to get a translator of my own, though; I wonder if the turtle people are as brutish as they look, or if there's more to them than meets the eye. Oh! And there's at least two species of lizard people; I spotted a different kind moving behind Captain Gavorn while you two were talking. None of them really strike my fancy, though, so…" Luna trailed off as her head slowly turned to the right, following the progress of a scantily-clad woman with blue skin and tentacles where her hair should have been. "Well now. That's more like it."

Chuckling, Harry wrapped one arm around Luna's waist and used it to keep her moving both forward and on course as she continued following the blue woman with her eyes. "All in due time, dear. There will be plenty of time for blue-skinned space babes after we deal with this 'Aria' person. Aria. Hmm. Aria. Something about that just screams 'Mediterranean' to me. Do you think this place is run by humans, then?"

Finally giving up on her optical molestation of her first ever space babe, Luna turned her attention forward and then let out a low whistle as Gavorn led them through a pair of sliding metal doors and into a giant club. A giant, three-storied club that was positively teeming with a mixture of human and blue alien women, all of whom were wearing very little while dancing provocatively for the patrons' enjoyment. "If it is, they have amazing taste."

Despite preferring to be a bit more discreet than Luna when it came to his appreciation of the fairer sex, even Harry couldn't keep his attention from wandering as Gavorn led them around the lowest tier of the club. Coming to a halt at the base of a staircase, he signaled for them to stay behind as he ascended a set of steps before turning a corner and disappearing from view. "Just out of curiosity, since you passed through the arch first… did you have any control over our destination?" Luna turned to look at him, arching one fine blonde brow. "What? We just so happen to land near a strip club? That's a little suspicious."

"Is it, now?" Smirking, Luna leaned in and nibbled at his neck gently before trailing her lips up to his earlobe. "If I'd been in control, don't you think we would have landed in the dressing room or some such? Perhaps a brothel full of lovely alien ladies?"

Point.


	3. Chapter 3

Joe's Note: This chapter will touch on the bit of temporal realignment I've done in my version of the story. Even in stories where I've adjusted the timeline of one or both fandoms, I try my best to have a definitive sequence of events to work from. Not only does it come in handy for basics of writing - you can't really refer to someone as 'the older brunette' if you don't know how old everyone is at any given time - but it keeps your characters from accidentally referring to stuff that hasn't happened yet.  
Dedications &amp; Thanks: Nicolas, Alexander, Howard, MJ, Daniel, Christopher, mpop, Riley, bloodylord, Luke, Zachary, Marc, Ziryo, Elliot, Crusifikz70, Timothy, Leigh, Jason, Chris, George, Koby, Ken, Thyatira, William, Invernos, Paul, Pat, Warren, Mitch, and Jess for sponsoring me on , and making it easier for me to spend more of my time writing. Additional thanks go to the incomparable LogicalPremise for his amazing set of references covering many untouched facets of the _Mass Effect_ universe, as well as listening to me ramble about ideas for the future of this story.

* * *

By the time Gavorn finally returned, Harry was on the verge of giving in to Luna's cajoling and wandering off to explore the club's entertainment. It wasn't like they had anything better to do; he'd already surreptitiously repaired her wand, transferred Wednesday to a carrier on his own back in case Luna did anything impulsive, raised the alien species count to eight - there were also elephantine beings and a four-eyed humanoid species that was extraordinarily fond of sneering at humans - and they'd teamed up to cast every linguistics-related charm they knew between the two of them on passing aliens. That effort met with complete failure, although Harry was reasonably certain that one of the teal-skinned space babes working at the bar could speak English. Hence Luna's desire to go wandering. Well, she wanted to go wandering anyway, but the English speaker made for a good enough excuse.

Without a word, Gavorn reached out and wrapped his talons around Harry's left forearm, pulling it forward so he could force an orange bracelet onto Harry's wrist. As soon as he was released, Harry yanked his arm back to his chest, examining his new accessory warily even as he watched Gavorn repeat the process on Luna with half an eye. "Aria refuses to type what she wants to say to you." Oh hey, they could understand him now! Wicked! "Someone will explain more about how they work after the meeting. For now, the fact that they do work should be good enough."

Harry nodded before turning to Luna as a random thought passed through his head. "I wonder if we all sound the same to turians or if our… turianese… has a British accent too?"

"Su said my Shanghainese had a distinct Devon accent. Never figured out whether she was taking the piss out of me or if she was serious. World's best Snap face, that girl." Luna brought her left hand up behind Harry's back as they followed Gavorn up the stairs, presumably petting Wednesday based on the low vibration that began emerging from the snorkack. Eventually they found themselves on an elevated platform that looked out over the rest of the club. A curved couch followed the edge of the platform, and sitting dead center in the middle of the couch was a purple-skinned space babe. Aria, presumably. "Hmm. Same question, roles reversed. Wonder what she's going to sound like to us. Do you think she'll be Irish? I do so love Irish girls…"

One of the darker purple lines running along Aria's brows twitched upward at Luna's words, but the purple-skinned woman remained otherwise impassive. After allowing Luna to natter on about Irish girls for almost a minute, she cleared her throat loudly, interrupting the blonde. "I'd heard that some humans can be uncivilized, but this is getting ridiculous. Gavorn, introduce these two so we're not here all day."

"Hmm. Canadian. It could be worse. At least she's not a Yank."

Stepping forward, Harry cut off both Gavorn's response and any further commentary from Luna. "Actually, we were expecting you to introduce yourself first. You are the hostess here, so to speak. But I suppose that's only how things are done back where we're from. Since they're clearly different here… if it will get things moving? My name is Harry Potter. This is my fiancée, Luna Lovegood. And you would be..?"

Aria's mouth opened and closed several times, and then her gaze flicked sideways to Gavorn. "Is he serious?"

"No, he's Harry. Sirius was his godfather." Luna let out a peal of laughter at the expression her joke received from Aria before making her way over to the couch and seating herself beside the woman. "Harry hates that joke too. He's more of the dry, sarcastic wit type. I'm a bit more flexible when it comes to my humor." Leaning in, Luna winked at Aria. "Flexible other ways, too."

As Aria likewise leaned in toward Luna, Harry reached into his pocket and pulled out a radish earring, slipping the hook through the hole in his right earlobe. While it looked thoroughly ridiculous, he'd take the ribbing if it meant he could hold a conversation with Luna over a distance without shouting. Or in this case, listen in on her conversation. "Since you supposedly don't know who I am, little girl, I'm going to assume that you'll also claim you don't know the one rule of Omega. It's really quite simple: Don't. Fuck. With. Aria."

Displaying the trademark fearlessness that both drew Harry to Luna and made him thoroughly convinced that he'd end up a widower someday, the blonde giggled and planted a kiss on Aria's dark purple lips before disappearing with a pop, reappearing on the other side of the woman even as Aria brought her right hand up and released a rippling burst of blue energy. Passing through the space that Luna had just occupied, it slammed into the couch and… Harry grimaced, watching the surface warp and ripple before crumbling. Whether magic or something else entirely, he had no idea, but he was reasonably sure that getting hit by one of those blasts would ruin a victim's day. Luna, unsurprisingly, was utterly nonplussed by the near miss, wrapping her arms around Aria's shoulders from behind. "If that's the only rule here, it would explain your mood. Everyone needs to have a little fun once in a while."

Aria let out a low growl at that, raising a glowing fist and throwing an awkward punch back over her left shoulder at Luna's head. Disapparating again, the blonde reappeared straddling the purple-skinned woman's lap and planted another kiss on her lips before apparating to safety once more. Blue energy crackled over Aria's skin wildly and then exploded outward, shredding even more of the couch and pushing Luna into a second apparition in rapid succession to escape the carnage. Their cat and mouse game continued for almost a minute, Aria wreaking increasing levels of havoc on her own domain as Luna stubbornly resisted her best efforts to hit her. At one point, his fiancée actually managed to create a friendly fire accident, apparating directly in front of a four-eyed being that Harry hadn't noticed at first just long enough to provoke Aria's wrath and popping away at the last second so a ball of blue energy passed through the space she'd just occupied, hitting it in the chest. Possibly him. The being looked reasonably male, but Harry didn't want to assume.

Finally, Harry decided that it was time to intervene if for no other reason that he was starting to worry that Aria might call in reinforcements, turning the women's little game of tag into a full-fledged battle with people who might actually be able to help them. "Luna, sweetie, please don't antagonize the woman in charge." Raising her hands in surrender, Luna apparated back to his side with a huff. "And weren't you the one who said we should keep certain things to ourselves? What happened to that idea?"

"You saw what that first spell of hers did. There was no way I was going to let it hit me. After that? Well, the kneazle was out of the bag anyway. Might as well have a bit of fun."

"If you hadn't kissed her, she wouldn't have tried to curse you."

"Semantics."

Harry sighed. Since when was he the calm, sensible one? Turning his attention back to Aria, he bit his lip to avoid laughing at the sight of her standing in front of her ruined couch, fists clenched as she panted and glared at the two of them. "At least I'm assuming you're in charge of Omega. Lieutenants usually don't react quite that badly to being challenged; they're used to having at least one person who's superior to them."

Continuing to glare at them, Aria fell back to perch on the edge of the sole remaining undamaged piece of couch, which just wide enough to hold her slender purple form. "I'm not 'in charge' of Omega, boy. I am Omega. I see everything, hear everything, and know everything that goes on aboard this station. Which means that I know neither of you were born here, nor did you arrive on the station through any of the docking bays. If you were smuggled aboard, that would mean you were deliberately trying to evade me and so you wouldn't be stupid enough to do something that gets my people's attention. Or… this." She spread her arms wide, gesturing to the wreckage that surrounded her. "Which then leaves me wondering… who are Harry Potter and Luna Lovegood? How did they get here? And what do they want?"

Was there any point in lying about who they were and how they'd gotten there, Harry wondered, now that Luna had blown their secret wide open? At least to Aria? Not to mention that anyone who ran a… whatever Omega was… probably had a fairly well tuned bullshit detector. It was highly likely that they wouldn't be able to get away with lying to her about anything significant; being honest with Aria right out of the gate might even earn them a few brownie points. "Since you don't seem to recognize our names, especially mine? I'm guessing that whenever and wherever we are, humans are still hiding certain things from the rest of the galaxy. And so the truth might be a bit unbelievable to you."

"Try me."

"We're a… I guess you'd call us a subspecies of humans. I think that's what we are; nobody had ever really looked into the science of what makes us magical, at least last I knew. The best way to explain it is that we're born with the ability to manipulate an energy field that we call 'magic'. Considering what you just did to this place trying to keep up with Luna, I'm guessing that your species has something similar." Harry paused, weighing Aria's open use of her magical powers against Gavorn's reaction to his wand and spellwork. "A long time ago, my people separated ourselves from the rest of humanity, hiding away in our own communities to keep from being persecuted by the rest of our kind for being different. Although that might not be true anymore; our information is a little out of date because we're from 2006. We worked for a government department that dealt in the strange and unusual. One of our coworkers accidentally activated some sort of gateway, and it threw us through time and space to… well, here. And now."

"…that's ludicrous."

"And yet here we are."

"Yes you are. Clear on the other side of the galactic core from Earth, and a hundred and seventy-five years in your future. I'd assume you were lying or insane - or possibly both - and have you shot where you stand for wasting my time…" Trailing off, Aria shrugged out of her white bolero jacket before blurring forward in a streak of blue light, reappearing in the middle of the platform on her feet as a wave of energy sent Harry, Luna, and Gavorn stumbling back. "Except that was the kanquess. It's one of many ways that my people can use our biotics. And as flashy and mysterious as it seems? But every last aspect of the kanquess - and every other biotic technique - is scientifically quantifiable and explainable. What your girlfriend does… that's nothing like anything we can do. Which means there's definitely something different about you. And I want to know what."

Harry slowly and carefully drew his wand, holding it up for Aria to see. "Like I said, we're magical. I'm a wizard and Luna's a witch. We've existed almost as long as humanity itself but as time went on, they gradually went from valuing or even revering our abilities to fearing them. Eventually, they began hunting us down and killing us. Doing the math… it's 2181? So we're only a decade away from the five hundredth anniversary of the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy being enacted, which was when we officially separated ourselves from the rest of mankind." An idea came to mind as to how to further demonstrate their powers in a way that Aria hopefully wouldn't find disagreeable and so Harry flicked his wand gently, tossing a Mending Charm at the nearest section of damaged couch. The woman's eyes went wide as the spell quickly undid the damage she'd caused, returning it to its original - or perhaps even better - condition in a few seconds. "And now you see why."

"Yes. The rest of it. Fix it." Aria doubled back to retrieve her jacket before moving out of the way, watching intently as Harry moved in a slow circle, repairing the couch section by section. He could have done the entire thing with a single spell but for some reason, he felt that continuing to downplay the full extent of his abilities was a good idea. When he was done, Aria held out her jacket as well and arched a brow. "It's my favorite but it's starting to show its age. Maybe with your help I can get another two or three hundred years out of it." Harry blinked but obliged her; was she planning to hand it down to someone or was she saying that she would live that much longer? It made him wonder… he'd assumed her to be in her late thirties or perhaps her early forties, or maybe in the sixty to eighty range if she aged at half-speed the way more powerful magicals did. But if she was looking forward to another two or three centuries of life, how many years did she already have under her belt? Was there a polite way to ask? He knew that it was impolite to ask human women their age, did that apply to aliens too? Shrugging the jacket back on, Aria retook her seat on the couch and stared up at Harry curiously. "I feel like I could spend a decade or two straight talking to you and still not get all the answers I need."

While he and Luna would age slower than normal humans, as much as he wanted to work with this local power rather than against her? Harry wasn't exactly keen on sacrificing such a large portion of his life just to satisfy someone's curiosity. "Well then maybe we should stick to the most pressing questions for now? I'm sure there's a lot you want to know, mind you, but what do you actually need to know before you… let us go? Help us? I'm not entirely clear why we're even here, to be honest."

The corner of Aria's mouth quirked upward at that. "You're here because I want you here. I am Omega. My desires are your existence." Wow. And here he'd thought the Malfoys had an ego on them. "Honestly, I wasn't expecting any of this when Gavorn brought you to me. I thought he'd stumbled onto some particularly indiscrete AIS agents who would need to be stripped of some new toys and then escorted to the docking bay. You're something else entirely. Something new. Something powerful. Part of me wants you off my station and as far away from me as possible. A bigger part of me wants you under my thumb, because that power could be useful to me." Harry's hackles rose at that; after spending years being manipulated by Dumbledore, he had no intentions of serving another master - knowingly or unknowingly - ever again. "A third part of me wants to lock your girlfriend there in a room with this one matron who's been trying to seduce me for the last century, because I feel like it'd be hilarious to watch. But all the parts of me despise making uninformed decisions. So I'm going to give you two choices: one of you melds with me so that I can see your memories and decide whether or not you're telling the truth… or I have my people shoot you and toss the remains out an airlock just to be safe. What's it going to be?"

Given that he'd already told her that he would be reasonably open about his secrets, the threat seemed patently unnecessary in Harry's book. Not to mention that whether or not she was actually capable of making good on that threat, it would likely involve a lot of people on her side dying along the way. He wasn't going to assume they were good people, given they served Aria and she wasn't exactly sunshine and daisies… but people all the same. There was just one question. "Not that we have much of a choice, but… what's 'melding'?"

Aria sighed, reaching up to pinch the bridge of her nose. "So much for my hope that your people met the _Senshelis_'s crew back in the 1580s and already knew something about asari." What? "To make a long story short, an asari can temporarily join her nervous system to another's. As you can probably guess, it makes sex a lot more interesting and it's also how asari reproduce. But in the hands of an asari who knows what she's doing? It can be used to save someone who's critically injured, share knowledge, or in our case? I'll be able to determine if you're telling the truth because I'll be able to look through your memories."

Out of all the things Harry had been expecting to hear, he could honestly say that was not one of them. "So you want to read mine or Luna's mind… by mating with one of us?"

"I volunteer!" Luna thrust her right arm up in the air, waving it back and forth enthusiastically. "I volunteer as tribute!"


	4. Chapter 4

Joe's Note: Technically Luna being a fan of _The Hunger Games_ is an anachronism because the first novel wasn't published until two years after they left for the future, but hey. Work with me here. It was a funny line to end a chapter on. And in this one… begin a chapter on. Also, I just realized that in the original _Lightning among the Stars_, all of Chapter 3 through the second scene of this chapter was condensed into less than seven hundred words. While sometimes I can have problems with decompression and being a bit verbose, I'd like to think that this is a better - and more interesting - way of handling Harry and Luna's first encounter with such an interesting, noteworthy, and powerful individual in the _Mass Effect_ universe…  
Dedications &amp; Thanks: Nicolas, Alexander, Howard, MJ, Daniel, Christopher, mpop, Riley, bloodylord, Luke, Zachary, Marc, Ziryo, Elliot, Crusifikz70, Timothy, Leigh, Jason, Chris, George, Koby, Ken, Thyatira, William, Invernos, Paul, Pat, Warren, Mitch, and Jess for sponsoring me on , and making it easier for me to spend more of my time writing. Additional thanks go to the incomparable LogicalPremise for his amazing set of references covering many untouched facets of the _Mass Effect_ universe, as well as listening to me ramble about ideas for the future of this story.

* * *

"I volunteer!" Luna thrust her right arm up in the air, waving it back and forth enthusiastically. "I volunteer as tribute!"

That actually worked out rather well, Harry realized, once he squashed his protective instincts. And got done cringing at the reference to that truly deplorable book that Luna loved so much. If Aria was telling the truth and melding operated on a base, neurological level? His occlumency would keep her at bay about as well as it kept him from getting infected by dragon pox. Luna, on the other hand, had a very… unique way of thinking… that actually stood a chance of slowing Aria down. The asari seemed to realize that as well, or perhaps she was still unnerved by Luna's earlier treatment of her. Whatever the reason, Aria eyed Luna warily as the blonde stepped forward, closing the distance between them. "When I said 'one of you', I actually meant Harry. I don't want to be within ten feet of you, girl, much less in your head."

Even as Luna crossed her arms over her chest and pouted in response, Harry raised his hands in surrender. "I spent the better part of sixteen years with someone else lodged in my brain. With all due respect, I'm not in a big hurry to let anyone else back in there anytime soon."

"And now we've added to the list of things I want to know about you. Fantastic. Fine. We'll do it your way… for now." Aria shook her head in resignation before rising to her feet and closing the distance between herself and Luna. Bringing her hands up on either side of the blonde's head, she pressed her fingers against Luna's pale skin. "This is going to be strictly business, girl. We're not 'mating', I'm interrogating you using the fastest, safest, and least painful method available to me. So don't you dare try anything funny when we… embrace eternity!"

Harry shook his head and turned to Gavorn, raising his left hand and extending all five fingers. As the turian stared at him uncomprehendingly, Harry slowly counted down to zero and then nodded in Aria and Luna's direction. Sure enough, the blonde had reached around to grab the asari's arse with both hands, pulling Aria forward into a kiss. Luna's left hand slowly slid outward to rest on the asari's hip before migrating upward toward Aria's breast, but her quest came to an abrupt end as Aria yanked herself backward. Undeterred, Luna crossed her arms behind her back and bounced on her toes. "Ooh, that was fun! Can you interrogate me some more? You only stayed in my mind long enough to see if we were telling the truth. If you dig deeper, you can find all sorts of interesting things, like-"

"For some reason, Potter, I want to threaten to fuck start her head if you don't shut her up and I don't even know what that means." Ah yes, _The Way of the Gun_. God bless Sky Cinema, and Luna's ability to 'convince' him - read: bribe him with promises of even more adventuresome bedroom fun - to watch truly atrocious American films with her. "Athame's tits, that girl's got to be the most irritating thing I've ever met and I used to fuck a hanar." Groaning, Aria wandered back over to the couch before throwing herself down on it, rubbing her temples as her eyes slowly faded from black to their normal blue. "Next time I need something from you two? I don't care about this Voldemort character, I'm going into your brain and you're going to like it."

Before Harry could respond to that - chances were slim that she'd be coming near his mind anytime soon and if it did happen, he certainly wouldn't be happy about it - Luna cut him off. "So, when do we get to meet Pelesa? She's pretty. Pointy, but pretty. And you two look quite lovely together, especially when you're both all bruised and bitten."

Head snapping up, Aria stared at Luna with wide, disbelieving eyes. "How..?"

"You connected our minds. You went into mine. Did you really expect me not to go into yours?" Luna's lips quirked upward into a smirk that Harry rarely got to see; his fiancée was rarely the gloating type but every so often, even she could be insufferably pleased with herself. "Don't worry, I only looked for your memories related to shagging. You know, the important things."

Aria's mouth worked soundlessly for a few seconds and then she groaned loudly, flopping back against her couch and staring up at the ceiling. "Gavorn, put them in one of the apartments next to Her's. I don't know what I'm going to do with them yet, but I saw enough to know that they're telling the truth. And then some, evidently. Goddess, I'm going to be purging like a dancer after Janiris tonight. Unless… Bray!" The four-eyed being that had been doing its best to avoid notice the entire time came to attention. Bray. Name? Species? Probably name. Aria didn't call Gavorn 'turian', after all, or Harry and Luna 'human'. "Round me up something cute to play with. Maybe if I meld with someone else, I can bury Lovegood's crap until I'm ready to deal with it."

As 'Bray' hurried off to handle her request, Gavorn sketched a bow and then turned away, making his way down the stairs without waiting to see if Harry and Luna were following. Lunging forward, Harry wrapped his fingers around Luna's wrist and then apparated them down to the base of the first staircase, allowing them to easily catch up with the turian. "So, how was it?"

Giggling, Luna intertwined her fingers with Harry and leaned her head on his shoulder as they walked. "You could bounce a galleon off that arse."

While not quite what he'd been after, the answer almost had Harry wishing that he'd volunteered to have his mind invaded.

Almost.

* * *

Leaning back against the bar, a woman in a dark blue robe tracked the trio with her yellow eyes as Gavorn led the two newcomers out of Afterlife. While her network was nowhere near as expansive as Aria's or the Shadow Broker's, she knew that the male was responsible for the death of a half-dozen vorcha… possibly using a personal-sized directed energy weapon. That alone would have made them worthy of investigation, and then she'd seen the female's eyes turn white and glow while she melded with Aria.

Fascinating.

Her fellow Sylléktries would want to know more, though, and there was no data like firsthand observation. Dropping a few credits next to her empty glass, she rose to her feet and melted into the crowd. As she closed in on the trio, she reached down to tap at her omni-tool and faded out of sight.

* * *

Their new apartment definitely put anywhere he'd lived to shame in terms of comforts, Harry thought as he looked around the expansive space. Not quite as big as Grimmauld Place in terms of pure square meterage, but the amenities easily made up for that. The three large windows that looked out over a combination of space and glowing cityscape, for instance, and the kitchen full of recognizable enough appliances that Harry was reasonably certain he'd be able to cook for them without blowing the station up. And- "Your omni-tools contain basic information about the galaxy, a communicator, and dozens of other things. I've seen humans a third your age figure out how to use them. If you haven't figured out how to contact me by the time my shift starts tomorrow, I'll send someone down to make sure you're not dead."

The corner of Harry's mouth quirked upward at that even as he slung the baby carrier off his back and released Wednesday from her confinement, watching as the snorkack took a few experimental hops before spreading her wings and flying over to the nearest window. "How charitable of you."

"What do you want from me? I'm not paid to deal with this kind of stuff. I'm paid to kill things that piss Aria off, and I was supposed to be done with that and home with my mate a while ago." Shaking his head, Gavorn turned and stalked toward the door of the apartment. "If I've missed another dinner with Vincent, I'm going to come back down here and bury my talons in your-"

The door slid shut, cutting off the rest of Gavorn's muttered threat, and Harry turned his attention to where Luna was waving her wand back and forth over the palatial bed that occupied a goodly amount of the raised portion of the split-level apartment. Already it had been transformed from something sleek, modern, and primarily metal to a four-poster bed resembling the one that occupied the master bedroom of Grimmauld Place. Ascending the four stairs separating the two levels, he wrapped his arms around her waist from behind. "Having fun?"

"Not as much fun as I'm about to have." Luna waved her wand back and forth, adding some Ravenclaw blue hangings to their bed before conjuring pillow after pillow along the head of the bed. Once she was satisfied with the state of their new bedroom, Luna turned her attention to Harry, looking him up and down slowly. "Right then. Pants off. This apartment isn't going to christen itself, you know."

Harry chuckled as he pulled away, emptying his pockets and enlarging each trunk before placing it against the nearby wall. He made sure to unlock and open the one containing their supply of potions; he wanted to have easy access to their stash of bruise balm and murtlap essence come morning. "Someone's feeling randy."

There was a soft growl and then Harry found himself flying through the air, landing in the center of the bed with a bounce. Luna stalked toward him, vanishing her clothes and then his before dropping her wand to the floor with a clatter. "No, someone was randy this morning when you got to work. You knew this was going to happen today; you should have gotten to work early so we could give your office a proper send-off before going to see Hermione. And that was before Aria and Afterlife." Even as Harry tried to push himself up on his elbows, Luna moved to straddle his waist and forced him back down onto the bed. "Less witty banter, more shagging."

"As you wish."

* * *

Thoroughly distracted by their fun, neither of them noticed the slight shimmering near the top of the stairs, or the wide yellow eyes that appeared for a moment before fading back out of existence.

* * *

"I'm still not terribly keen on the idea of carrying a gun."

"I know you don't, Harry, but if you want to be allowed out of this apartment on your own? Aria's going to make you carry one. Same goes for Luna."

Given the length and breadth of their activities when it came to thoroughly breaking in their new home, neither Harry nor Luna had risen early that morning. Accordingly, their vague deadline with Gavorn had come and gone without them making any breakthroughs with their omni-tools, forcing the turian to send someone to the apartment. Much to Harry's surprise - given that Luna had made no secret of her proclivities - Gavorn had picked a svelte asari with teal skin to serve as their guide to the twenty-second century.

Krína had turned out to be a wonderfully adept teacher for a pair of pupils who weren't even familiar with twenty-first century computers, explaining things in simple and basic terms without coming off as condescending. In short order, she managed to walk them through the device's communication, encyclopedia, and extranet functions, and had shown Luna how to use an omni-tool to capture both still photos and videos. The latter had left Harry shaking his head; he wasn't sure how much storage space an omni-tool had, but he was reasonably certain that Luna would manage to completely fill it with homemade pornography in no time at all.

With her task technically complete, Krína had made to leave… and then given in far too easily when Luna offered up her best puppy dog eyes and asked for a tour of the area. Not that Harry blamed Krína; dealing with him and Luna was probably more fun than whatever Aria usually had the asari doing. They'd ended up making a circuit of the immediate neighborhood as Krína pointed out where some of Aria's trusted lieutenants lived before moving outward into the nearby commercial district so she could show them what places were safe to eat at. Their final stop had been Omega Market, where Krína had surprised them by picking up a pair of pistols that Aria had purchased for them. Leading to their current discussion. "But I don't understand why. Aria of all people should know that we-"

"She does know what you're capable of, Harry, or at least some of what you can do. Thing is? She doesn't want everyone else knowing. From what she told me when Gavorn brought me to her for a briefing, the galaxy as a whole isn't that different from the Earth you left. While biotics are commonplace, your 'magic' isn't and so if you don't hide your powers, you'll attract attention. The wrong kind of attention. So as long as you're on the station, and living under Aria's hospitality?" Krína took the M-3 Phalanx from Harry and adjusted something, causing a blue beam of light to emerge from just above the barrel. "If you get in trouble, you're going to keep your stick holstered, point this light at what's after you, and pull the trigger until it stops moving."

Harry sighed and took the pistol back, slowly sweeping it across the room and watching as the laser sight traced a path along the windows' glass. Then his keen eyes noticed something and he doubled back, frowning as the blue light bent slightly to one side and then the other as it passed over a certain area. "Am I the only one seeing this, or-"

While he didn't know what to make of the phenomenon, Krína evidently did. Lunging forward, she pulled her shotgun from where it rested at the small of her back and pointed it toward the anomaly Harry had discovered. "Freeze! I don't know how you got in here, but you'll be leaving here in a few pieces if you don't show yourself now."

"You are aware that those two requests are mutually exclusive, right?" The words came rapidly at a high pitch; while the galaxy's heavy reliance on computerized translators meant that the speaker could have been anyone or anything, it was a sound that Harry associated with a woman who'd had a bit too much sugar or too big a dose of Pepper Up Potion. "If they make a tactical cloak that responds to voice commands, I haven't been outfitted with it. So I can either remain motionless… or deactivate my cloak so you can see me. Which is more important?"

After examining her own Phalanx for a few seconds, Luna figured out how to activate the laser sight and rose from the couch, sweeping inward from the right until she found the edge of the distortion created by their visitor's 'tactical cloak'. "Actually, I don't really care if you stay here all invisible for a while. It's not the first time we've had an unknown voyeur. Makes it a bit hotter, to be honest…"

The air shimmered as the woman brought the fingers of her right hand up to tap against her left forearm. Tendrils of blue energy rippled over the being, outlining her figure, and then she faded into view. Like Krína, their voyeur was an asari, but the two were as different from each other as Luna and Hermione. While Krína was almost uniformly a teal skin tone, the newcomer - so to speak, given that she'd been in their apartment for an unknown amount of time - had skin that was green near her core and radiated outward into blue tones, with dark blue markings over her brilliant yellow eyes that almost looked like a pair of footprints. And unlike Krína - and Aria, and every other asari he'd seen so far - her crests seemed to naturally split themselves into two distinctly horn-like bundles that rose upward into the air rather than possessing the slicked back appearance of a normal asari's crests. They were even dressed completely differently: Krína was wearing a black dress that was remarkably conservative compared to what Harry had seen other asari wearing while they were out touring Omega, while the newcomer was wearing sleek purple and gold armor with an 'O' in the center of the chestplate. "Technically, I'm not a voyeur. I'll admit to watching you two go at it and enjoying it, but I enjoyed it in a 'I wish I could get in on that' way. Not a 'oh goddess yes, I love spying on sex so much' way. I was just doing my duty to my people and then… well, moving on. My name is Óasi Cytherea Paralía Yaan Calia, and I may have a solution to your problems."


	5. Chapter 5

Joe's Note: Since I made it more than clear that Kasumi wouldn't be involved with my version of the story - or at least involved in the same way - due to me cleaning up the timeline, I'm sure you're all wondering who has taken her spot shadowing our protagonists and who her 'Sylléktries' are. Well, since this was where Kasumi insinuated herself into Harry's life in _Lightning among the Stars_, it seems as good a place as any to introduce one Óasi Cytherea Paralía Yaan Calia. And if you looked at that name and thought something other than 'Mary Sue', you're either a hardcore _Mass Effect_ geek like me, have read LogicalPremise's work, or quite likely both.  
Dedications &amp; Thanks: Nicolas, Alexander, Howard, MJ, Daniel, Christopher, mpop, Riley, bloodylord, Luke, Zachary, Marc, Ziryo, Elliot, Crusifikz70, Timothy, Leigh, Jason, Chris, George, Koby, Ken, Thyatira, William, Invernos, Paul, Pat, Warren, Mitch, and Jess for sponsoring me on , and making it easier for me to spend more of my time writing. Additional thanks go to the incomparable LogicalPremise for his amazing set of references covering many untouched facets of the _Mass Effect_ universe, as well as listening to me ramble about ideas for the future of this story.

* * *

"Technically, I'm not a voyeur. I'll admit to watching you two go at it and enjoying it, but I enjoyed it in a 'I wish I could get in on that' way. Not a 'oh goddess yes, I love spying on sex so much' way. I was just doing my duty to my people and then… well, moving on. My name is Óasi Cytherea Paralía Yaan Calia, and I may have a solution to your problems."

Harry eyed the asari suspiciously as he holstered his pistol and drew his wand. If she'd been spying on them for as long as she was implying, he reasoned, she already knew all about their abilities. No point in pretending they were muggles. Besides, his wand could be used for a great many more things than his pistol if she proved reluctant to answer certain questions. "Oh? And what problems do you think you can help us with? Although before we start, what out of that entire mess is your actual name?" Pausing, Harry realized that his last question could have been phrased a bit better. "Your given name? What should we call you in conversation?"

"Calia. Or Yaan if you're feeling formal or unfriendly." Slowly making her way across the room, Calia took a seat in the middle of the couch and leaned back. "Based on your reaction, I'm guessing you haven't met a salarian yet?"

Holstering her own pistol, Luna activated her omni-tool and brought up an image of one of the lizard people that had been accompanying Gavorn when they first met him. "Salarian, yeah? We've seen a few. What do they have to do with your name? You're an asari."

Calia rolled her eyes at that. "Only half. My father was a salarian."

"Ugh, you're one of those types." Krína's words and the accompanying groan made Harry shoot a curious glance at the teal asari, prompting her to elaborate. "Considering you generally can't tell us apart, it's something that some of my kind do and I really can't figure out why. Oh, you're half-krogan, one-quarter batarian, your aithntar was some species the rest of us haven't met yet because your mother was part of a Council contact team… it doesn't matter who your mother melded with. At the end of the day, you're still an asari. An asari who acts a lot like her aithntar, maybe, but still an asari."

Reaching up, Calia ran her fingers along her crests before interlacing her fingers behind her neck and stretching. "Yes, because I look just like your average asari, don't I? Clearly nothing different here. Especially nothing that would possibly remind you of my salarian ancestry in the least." She had a point there; while Harry had limited exposure to asari as a whole given that he'd only been on Omega for roughly a day at this point, she was noticeably different from any other asari he'd seen thus far. "My name is traditional salarian nomenclature, meaning it lists my place of birth from the planet through any political divisions to the city, then my clan, then my given name. So in the future, if you meet a salarian or another asari like me, focus on the last two words out of their mouth when they introduce themselves. That's the information you really need. The rest is just salarian cultural posturing."

Harry nodded, filing the information away for future usage. It made him wonder about the rest of the species that now surrounded him. Krína, Aria, presumably the 'Pelesa' that Luna had mentioned after melding with Aria… one name. Gavorn likewise, unless 'Captain' was a given name in his people's tongue in addition to being a rank in Harry's. Did they have more than one name? If so, what order were they presented in? These were the kind of things he needed to know if he was going to be mingling with aliens from now on. After all, he was no longer the 'Anglocentric bag of dicks' he'd been when he met Su, and understood that a little bit of respect for other cultures went a long way with people. "So noted. Back to the subject at hand… you claim you can help us?"

"After a fashion, Harry. Can I call you Harry?" Calia waited until he nodded before raising her hands and ticking points off on her fingers. "As far as I see it, your problems are thus. You're currently existing purely on Aria's good graces, and you have to hope that the pirate queen doesn't get bored of you, opt to impress you due to your powers, decide you're a threat to her power and kill you, et cetera and so forth. You're stuck in that situation because you're flat broke until you can take that trunk full of precious metals to a human colony and convert them to credits at a respectable rate. You can't do it here because what your people did - and still - value isn't the same as what the rest of the galaxy does, and so you'd get more selling your kidneys than you would for a trunk full of what we see as industrial metals. You can't fly to a human colony and sell things because you're currently broke. You're basically stuck in a vicious cycle: you can't get money without spending money you don't yet have. Unless you put yourself in someone's debt… or find someone willing to help you out."

Harry let out a snort of disbelief at that before drawing his wand, waving it and conjuring an ornate chair for himself. "I see." Slipping his wand back into its holster, he sank down into the chair before patting the armrest with his right hand. As Luna settled in at his side, he wrapped his arm around her waist before fixing Calia with a distinctly unimpressed look. "Let me guess. Despite just hearing you admit that you're spying on us for someone, we're supposed to believe you want to help us out?"

"Well, not me personally. Not that I don't feel for you, because I do, but I don't have my own ship. Which should be evident by the fact that I'm on this rock to begin with; if I could go wherever I wanted, I'd be pretty much anywhere other than Omega or Khar'shan right now." Calia shot a glance out the window at the reddish cityscape of Omega, shuddering faintly before continuing. "I'm just a scout for my people: I identify interesting specimens, observe them, and then report back to Óasi. I'm authorized to negotiate on behalf of the matriarchs if I find someone who just barely qualifies for our attention, but-"

The longer he let Calia speak, the more confused Harry found himself getting, and so he whistled softly to interrupt her so that he could get a word in edgewise. "Not that these extra details aren't fascinating and all, but you're sorta tap-dancing around the erumpent in the room. Who are 'your people'? Who do you represent? Because if you've been with us since we got to this apartment, you know that we know pretty much nothing about the galaxy and I'd really like a name I can bounce off Encyclopedia Krína here."

"The Sylléktries." The utterly alien word made Harry frown and eye his omni-tool suspiciously, but Calia was ready with an explanation. "We routinely hack the government servers that push out translator updates and make sure that word goes untouched. It's a word from an old asari dialect; it's modern counterpart has recently become what the asari call another species entirely. So if we let translators do their jobs properly, we'd end up getting confused with the creepy bug aliens from being the Omega 4 relay anytime we talked about ourselves."

A name that he didn't recognize and another question to add to all of the others that he had about the galaxy, Omega, and now Calia. And her 'people'. Harry groaned, bringing his hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose. "Krína? Can you help me make some sense out of all this?"

There was a soft whir as Krína's shotgun collapsed and then she stored it at the small of her back before throwing herself down on the left arm of his chair. "I would love to, but… by the goddess. I thought the Sylléktries were a myth."

"Evidently you were myth-taken." Luna loosed a tinkling, bell-like laugh at her terrible joke even as Harry and Krína both groaned loudly, sliding off the arm of the chair and rising to her feet. "You know, Calia, you're lucky that I'm with Harry these days." Circling around behind the couch, she leaned down to rest her chin in the space between the twin, horn-like bundles of crests atop Calia's head as she lay her hands on the asari's shoulders. "It means I can't employ some of my favorite interrogation methods from the war."

Calia tipped her back, trying in vain to meet Luna's gaze. "You don't think I'm trained to resist torture?"

Snickering, Luna slid her hands down so that her fingers brushed against the tops of Calia's lightly armored breasts. "Who said anything about torture, luv? The way I do things, I'd make you beg to give me your secrets… and then beg me not to stop what I was doing even when you'd run dry and had nothing left to tell me."

"I hate to break it to you, 'luv', but I'm older than you. And I've been living all these years, not jumping ahead to this time." Reaching up with both hands, Calia summoned her biotics and wrapped a field of glowing blue energy around Luna. Harry raised his wand threateningly, only to relax when all the asari did was float Luna up and over the back of the couch, settling the blonde on her lap before releasing her. "You might be an amazing fuck where you come from, but I was probably more experienced back when you were learning to write your own name."

Leaning in, Luna wrapped her arms around Calia's neck as she pressed her nose against the asari's and stared into her eyes. "Is that a challenge?"

"Maybe after the hired gun leaves. Unlike you, I'm not into having an audience."

"Well then I suppose it's a good thing that Harry's not letting me bring girls home yet, because you wouldn't last long in my bed. Oh, and since you were kind enough to bring me face to face with you?" Reaching up, Luna drew her wand from where it was tucked behind her ear and then jabbed the tip against the side of Calia's head, freezing her in place before casting one of the few spells either of them still had to verbalize. "_Legilimens_."

* * *

Sitting in his office, Jack Harper allowed himself a moment's respite as he stared out at the slowly shifting mass of colors on the surface of Anadius before sighing and pulling up the footage attached to the latest report from one of his agents on Omega. While he sincerely doubted that one more viewing would make the video any more sensical, he also knew that his obsession with solving mysteries would keep him from moving on until he finally understood what he was looking at. So the sooner he got back to work, he reasoned, the sooner he'd finish.

A bright flash of white light. Two humans - and their very unusual, yet to be identified pet - appearing out of nowhere. A few minutes of motionlessness. The male awakening, followed seconds later by the female. The male drawing some sort of device from up his sleeve, and using it to emit several colored bursts of light with varying effects. The female producing a damaged version of the device for a few seconds before tucking it away again. The arrival of the vorcha. The male assuming a defensive position in front of the female, and then using more bursts of light to drive the vorcha back. One burst sending them flying out of sight - forcing his agent to have to cobble together footage from a second security camera - and a last burst of red light that caused the vorcha to explode. The humans being approached by one of Aria's lackeys and then led off.

From there, according to reports collected from lower-ranking agents and collated for easy reading, the two humans had met with Aria briefly before being escorted to one of the more heavily defended apartment blocks that was firmly within Aria T'Loak's personal domain. Two separate agents claimed to have seen the woman's eyes turn white and glow while she linked with Aria. A single report could be written off as a trick of the light or an agent indulging in a drink too many with customers in Afterlife. Two warranted investigation. According to an eavesdropper, their names were supposedly Harry Potter and Luna Lovegood. Given that neither appeared in any of the numerous databases that Harper had access to - and Luna Lovegood sounded like something out of a Fleming novel - he'd noted them as probable aliases and told his analysts to focus on facial recognition. Today, the pair had emerged briefly from their apartment under the watchful eye of one of Aria's subordinates, touring the more secure portions of Omega's core and acquiring weapons before returning home. And-

An alert blinked off to his right, signifying the arrival of priority traffic from a field agent. From the same field agent as the report he was reading, Harper noted before opening the message. He stared at it for a few seconds before swearing under his breath. While he normally appreciated initiative, the intercepted messages that his agent had taken hours to crack could have been done in seconds aboard Cronus Station if only he'd attached them. Now Harper was stuck playing catchup and if there was one thing he hated above all others, it was being forced into a reactionary position.

The Sylléktries were after his mystery humans. Personally, Harper respected the asari sect's goals because - save for their largely isolationist stance - they weren't terribly different from the guiding principles of Cerberus. But that respect came to an abrupt end when there was the possibility of advanced human specimens or unknown, advanced technology falling into the hands of a group of eugenics-obsessed aliens. But competing with them for the favor of Potter and Lovegood would be… difficult, to say the least. Countering whatever offer the Sylléktries made in terms of money or materiel would likely require a sizable financial outlay, and then there was the nature of the Sylléktries themselves…

"Jana, contact Operatives Lawson and Brooks and have them come to my office immediately. And have someone create a new set of papers for Brooks; I refuse to have one of my people walking around using the name 'Tabitha Rasa' of all things…"

* * *

Tapping his fingers together as he stared at the reports filtering in from both Omega and Cronos Station, the Shadow Broker smiled widely. "Oh, Harper, you almost make things too easy for me. If only you were humble enough to work with the salarians or quarians, you might actually stand a chance of keeping me out of your systems."

It was nice to have confirmation that his agents weren't dosing up on red sand while on the job, which had been his initial thought when reports started rolling in about a human male with a 'stick' that shot beams of light and a human whose eyes glowed when she linked with an asari. While the latter was still unsubstantiated, albeit backed by the reports of Cerberus's own assets on Omega, he now had video of the former. The fact that he was resorting to stealing said footage from Cerberus was intolerable, though, and the Broker made an idle note to either turn or kill the Cerberus agent who had collected the video. He didn't recognize the attached name, but the Broker assumed they were in a position superior to his own agent within that corner of Aria's organization and that was to explain for his person's failing.

If not… well, there were ways to handle that eventuality as well.

As for the Sylléktries, the Broker had known about them hours ago thanks to his agents remembering what they were paid to do and what was supposed to be passed on to their superiors for handling. It hadn't been of any particular concern to him, given that he had no plans for 'Potter' and 'Lovegood' beyond continued observation. He even had a handful of Syllektrión maidens on his payroll, which allowed him to keep an eye on anyone who accompanied them back to Óasi. But if Harper was sending Lawson and Brooks in, that meant a honeypot operation to try and counter the Sylléktries' interest in Aria's new pets. While the Broker may not have any plans of his own for Potter and Lovegood? That didn't mean he wanted Harper succeeding in any plans that he might have had involving the pair.

"Operative Macaria. I have an assignment for you."


	6. Chapter 6

Joe's Note: Not gonna lie, endlessly amused by the few people who come out each chapter to lob a review about how the story 'still sucks' or whatnot. If that's the case, not sure why they're still reading but hey, to each their own. A lot of people will judge an unfamiliar story by a combination of summary, word count, and review count and that last number inches up with each cowardly ball of hatred that someone tosses at me. On that note, guests who leave detailed reviews and want replies? I can't really do much when you don't give me any mechanism of contacting you. Sorry. Finally, kinda surprised at how many fans of _Mass Effect_ don't understand why a human with nothing but precious metals to their name might face problems in a far corner of space. Then again, as Aethyta so succinctly put it, we do have a tendency to be anthropocentric bags of dicks…  
Dedications &amp; Thanks: To Nicholas, Alexander, Howard, MJ, Daniel, Christopher, Jason, Chris, George, Koby, Judedeath, Ken, Thyatira, William, Wil, Thomas, Jack, Pat, Chris, Mitch, and Jess for sponsoring me on , and making it easier for me to spend more of my time writing. Additional thanks go to the incomparable LogicalPremise for his amazing set of references covering many untouched facets of the _Mass Effect_ universe, as well as listening to me ramble about ideas for the future of this story.

* * *

Digging an answer out of someone's mind with legilimency wasn't terribly arduous or time-consuming, at least if one knew what they were doing and their opponent's mind was unprotected. If the target had any degree skill with occlumency, that increased the difficulty - and time required - accordingly. Finding multiple answers, on the other hand, was a complete crapshoot. If the subject had a disorganized mind, it was often akin to trying to track down a specific number of needles in an exceedingly large stack of hay… or it could be as simple as plucking consecutive books off a shelf if the user had a highly organized mind. Interpreting any number of answers when one lacked the frame of reference? Damn near impossible, forcing a legilimens to dig even more deeply into their target's mind in search of information to bridge whatever gaps existed between their own knowledge and what they were learning.

While Harry was adept enough when it came to most types of magic - and quite skilled at a number of them - Luna was far and away the superior legilimens out of the two of them. That being said, he knew enough from both book learning and practical experience to not be alarmed as seconds turned to minutes and then to hours, the blonde eventually shifting from sitting across Calia's lap to straddling it without ever breaking eye contact or her spell. Three hours in, Krína reluctantly excused herself, citing an early shift at Afterlife the next morning. Four hours in, Harry found himself debating between paying a restaurant to deliver dinner and trying to make his way back to the portion of the market so he could buy groceries and cook a meal for them himself… only to be yanked rudely from his thoughts as the apartment's door slid open with no warning. Despite the fact that it put Luna in the line of fire, Harry's only cover was the couch and so he reluctantly dove behind it for protection as he drew the pistol Krína had given him and pointed it at… "Aria? And a guest."

Aria smirked and raised her hands in surrender as she stepped through the doorway, a younger-looking asari following behind her hesitantly. Eyes flicking over to where Luna was still perched on Calia's lap, the purple line that graced Aria's right brow inched upward. "When Krína told me that your fiancée's interrogation methods were 'bizarre', I was expecting something magical. Maybe turning her inside out while she was still alive, or turning one of her arms into a dangerous animal that kept attacking her, or… well, anything but this to be honest. What am I missing? I mean, they're not even talking."

"Considering you read Luna's mind while snogging her, you of all people should know that you don't need to ask questions to interrogate someone. Or at least ask them out loud." Harry slowly rose to his feet, holstering his pistol before circling around the couch and studying the mysterious second asari who had followed Aria into his apartment. Or rather, she was the third asari currently in his apartment; Aria was technically the second after Calia. "It's called legilimency; I'll let Luna explain it to you if you're really curious because she's forgotten more about it than I was ever taught."

After eyeing Luna speculatively for a few seconds, Aria nodded. "As annoying as she is, I might take you up on that offer, Potter. Knowledge is power in my business, and I have far more questions than answers right now when it comes to you two." Before she could continue, a winged and horned ball of fluff rocketed across the room, coming in for a landing on her left shoulder. Harry bit his lip to avoid laughing as Aria abruptly went very still, allowing Wednesday to chirp and sniff at her crests several times before circling around to settle on the asari's right shoulder. "Let's start with the question that just decided to use me as a perch. What the fuck is this monstrosity?"

Harry finally allowed himself a brief laugh as he took a seat in one of the chairs that faced the couch, allowing him to split his attention between where Luna was still perched atop Calia's lap and Aria, who was eyeing her passenger suspiciously. The snorkack turned her head a bit, meeting Aria's two eyes with four of her own before bumping her nose against the asari's gently. As Aria sputtered and rubbed at the tip of her nose, Harry decided to take pity on her. "Her name is Wednesday and she's a snorkack. Looking her up on the extranet would probably be a waste of time; snorkacks were considered a myth even by the wizarding world until Luna and my friend managed to capture a pair. Oh, and you might want to be nicer to Wednesday. She's scarily smart, and she's been known to bite people who offend her. Or pee on them."

That revelation made Aria's eyes go wide and then a blue energy field rippled into existence around her body… and Wednesday. The snorkack let out an indignant squawk and shifted from side to side a few times before unfurling her left wing, slapping Aria upside the head with it to express her displeasure. After spending a few more seconds observing the way her barrier formed a bubble around Wednesday - and earning two more whacks from the snorkack's wing - Aria relaxed and the energy dissipated almost as quickly as it had appeared. "There are some old Thessian tales about asari with higher than average eezo concentrations in their bodies who could do bizarre and fantastical things with their biotics. Things that seemed almost… supernatural. If your 'magical' pet can manipulate mass effect fields like a Thessian animal, I wonder if that means-"

"I thought the Sol system was barren when it came to eezo?" While it may have been intended to be a rhetorical question, it was enough to both cut Aria off and draw Harry's attention to the younger asari who had accompanied her. Said asari blushed faintly at the scrutiny before gathering herself and straightening up. "I'm right, aren't I? Isn't that why the Systems Alliance bought so much of it from us immediately after the Relay 314 Incident? They didn't have any of their own and hadn't discovered the deposits in their colonies' systems yet?"

Even though the questions were presumably directed at Aria, the fact that the asari was looking his way made Harry feel the urge to answer… or rather non-answer. "I haven't the foggiest. Probably because I have no idea what eezo is. Maybe you can fill me in while Aria grills Luna about legilimency, Miss..?"

"You don't know who I am?"

"If I did, would I be asking?"

"I… no. Of course not. I just assumed that since you live on this block, you… my name is Liselle. Liselle T'Loak. Aria is my aithntar." While the back and forth between Krína and Calia had allowed Harry to intuit that the term had something to do with asari reproduction and parentage, hearing Liselle name Aria as hers blew most of his theories about the meaning of the word out of the water. His bafflement must have shown on his face, because Liselle opted to take a moment and fill in that hole in his knowledge. "Oh, you actually heard that? Most humans have omni-tools with translators programmed to substitute in 'father'. An aithntar is the parent who doesn't carry the child in an asari relationship. Another asari, a male alien, a female alien, whatever. It's a term that goes all the way back to before asari left Thessia; they decided they needed something to call the non-mother asari when you could have two asari who were sisters and shared both parents but had different mothers."

To a normal human, that might have seemed completely unnatural and mystifying. Mind-blowing. Freakish, even, if they were a Dursley. Fortunately for Harry, the time he'd spent in the wizarding world allowed him to easily comprehend it by framing it in familiar terms: veela. Or better yet, he realized, banshees. After all, Fleur and Gabrielle were quarter-veela while their mother was a half-veela. Banshees, on the other hand, maintained purebloodedness through reproduction. Every child a banshee had was a daughter, who was always a pure banshee herself. When a banshee had a child, it was always a daughter who was always a banshee. The only difference between banshees and asari, then, was that the asari had figured out a way of breeding with each other - and other women - in addition to mating with men.

Aria let out a groan, drawing Harry's attention away from Liselle and back to the pirate queen. "And she wonders why I don't involve her with any of my more sensitive operations; two hundred years old and she still doesn't grasp the concept of 'need to know'. You'd better hope I decide you're worth keeping around, Potter, because that little tidbit of information?" Pausing, Aria gestured from herself to Liselle and back before snapping her fingers, creating a bright burst of blue light. "I've killed better men than you to protect it."

"I've yet to meet a better man than Harry." Breaking the connection between herself and Calia, Luna rolled her shoulders and then cracked her neck before spinning around on Calia's lap, letting her legs drop to rest on either side of the slender asari's as she faced them. "Then again, that didn't take much where and when we came from. Most of the boys I knew called me cruel names and stole my belongings and out of the few who didn't, Harry's the only one who doesn't cry like a little bitch when I want to go four or five rounds in one night."

Harry found himself blushing at both another example of Luna's chronic oversharing and the frankly appraising looks that both Aria and Liselle shot his way. Then 'father' and daughter seemed to realize what they were doing, the mutual appraisal turned to disgust, and Liselle found a point off in the far corner of the room to inspect as Aria cleared her throat. "First 'fuck starting' and now I've got the mental image of you and Potter bouncing around inside my head. You're just the gift that keeps on giving, aren't you, Lovegood?"

Interlocking her fingers at the small of her back, Luna grinned coquettishly before arching her back so her chest was thrust out in Aria's direction. "And giving and giving, as long as you treat me nicely." When Aria failed to look impressed with the display, Luna's grin turned into a pout for a fraction of a second and then she was spreading her arms wide as she flopped back down onto Calia's lap. "That's okay. Calia's probably better in bed than you anyway. After all, according to her memories, being half-salarian means that she needs less sleep and has more energy than someone like you…"

"Hey now, leave me out of-"

"I'll have you know that I was making other asari scream my name back when your species was still…" Aria trailed off, staring at Luna oddly. "Wait, why am I arguing with you? If you think she's a better fuck than me, you'll stop trying to get into my panties."

"I'm just going to put this out there… you didn't strike me as the type to wear panties."

"I don't. It's a figure of speech."

"Good to know." Twirling her wand between her fingers, Luna gave the tip a lick before winking at Aria. "And if you can't figure out fuck starting, you could always meld with me again so I can show you… or I could get Harry to help me demonstrate it?"

Groaning, Aria lowered herself into the other armchair that faced the couch before shooting a despairing look over Harry. "Is she always like this?"

Despite logically knowing that laughing at the person who could have them killed and dumped into space - or killed by being dumped into space - was a terrible idea, Harry couldn't manage to keep from chuckling at Aria's expression. "No. Sometimes she's randy."

"By the goddess. How are you not dead from dehydration yet?" Aria shook her head in disbelief before reluctantly turning her attention back to Luna. "Since I don't like wasting my incredibly valuable time, let's get back to the reason I came down here. Tell me what you've found out about the Sylléktries, Lovegood, and then I'll fill in the gaps."

Before Luna could open her mouth to answer, though, Harry thought back to Krína's reaction to Calia's affiliation and furrowed his brow. "You know about the Sylléktries? Krína made it sound like they were some sort of asari boogeyman… or maybe a ghost story would be a better description."

Aria shot a look his way that reminded Harry distinctly of when he or Ron said something incredibly stupid around Hermione, and then the purple-skinned asari jerked her head in Liselle's direction. "Considering her mother is one, I'd like to think I know a few things about them, yeah." Pausing, Aria looked pensive for a moment and then the corner of her mouth quirked upward. "I almost said she was the result of me fucking one, but I'm still not sure who was fucking who out of me and Pelesa. Turian Sylléktria, everything was about the fight. Half the time, I didn't know if we were brawling or fucking until I felt the meld kick in. Thankfully Liselle doesn't take after her mother, or I'd have a few bruised bartenders from what I hear."

Even as Liselle sputtered in embarrassment, her skin again flushing a darker shade of blue, Harry found himself eyeing the younger asari speculatively. Now that Aria mentioned it, he could see hints of Gavorn's people in her. Her crests were slightly more rigid and splayed than Aria and Krína's, and she was… gangly was a polite way to put it, Harry decided. The revelation had him mentally reexamining every asari he'd so much as seen in passing; he'd written Liselle's differences off to genetic diversity but if she was the result of outside DNA, how many other Sylléktries had he passed here on Omega without even knowing? "Right then, so I guess that establishes your bona fides when it comes to them, but-"

"They're eugenicists like Voldemort, except their definition of superior is… well, impure blood by most peoples' standards. Oh, and their plans tend to involve flattery, bribery, and copious amounts of shagging. Which I think we can all agree is much better than torture, rape, and murder." That brought Harry up short, mostly because 'Voldemort' and 'shagging' were two words that he'd never expected to hear in the same conversation. Also, was it 'copious amounts' by a normal person's standards? Or - more worryingly - by Luna's? Rising to her feet, the blonde circled around behind couch and then leaned down, hugging Calia from behind and resting her chin in the divide between the asari's two bundles of crests again. "They've also got a bit of the Order of the Phoenix to them. To make a twenty-nine hundred year long story exceedingly short? Thessia is home to a beacon left behind by the Protheans; I'm not entirely sure who they are but they're evidently important, powerful, and dead. That beacon is the reason the asari are so powerful: they've never needed to invent and innovate like the other species, they're handed the knowledge they need by the beacon."

A loud snort interrupted Luna, Aria lazily turning her head to look over at Harry as she gestured to Luna. "Just so you know, Lovegood is starting to dip into state secrets there. If the Republics find out you know about what they're hiding in the Temple of Athame, they will kill you."

"They can try. Nobody hurts Harry… except me. And that's only after we've set a safeword." Luna scowled at the thought, the tip of her wand glowing an angry red as she twirled it between her fingers again. Then she reined in her magic and the building energy dissipated, the blonde tucking her wand up behind her ear for safekeeping. "Anyway… one of the first things the asari found inside the beacon was a warning about beings called 'Reapers', who sweep the galaxy clean of life every fifty thousand years. One faction of the asari realized that if the Protheans were wiped out by these Reapers, the asari wouldn't stand a chance against them if all they did was copy the Protheans' technology. After all, if the Protheans had been capable of defeating the Reapers, they'd still be around today. So when twenty-seven other matriarchs set out into space their followers, Matriarch Atalania gathered up those loyal to her and left Thessia to find a new home. Somewhere they could prepare for what was coming. Nearly three millennia later, they've become a power that spans several worlds and two systems, have their own order of justicars, four small but distinct fleets, and-"

Even as he nodded in all the right places to nudge her onward, Harry found himself waiting and waiting for an answer that failed to materialize. And so finally he found himself interrupting her in an attempt to steer the conversation toward where he needed it to be. "Where does the eugenics fit into this? For that matter, where do we?"

Luna huffed and rolled her eyes at the question. "Isn't it obvious, Harry? In the eugenics. To make sure their people are as ready as they can be for the coming war, the Sylléktries are seeking out the best of every race. The strongest, the smartest, the most talented biotics… anyone and everyone special. Then they breed them into their population to create stronger soldiers, smarter scientists, et cetera and so forth."

Despite what Snape claimed, Harry was not in fact an idiot. Even he was capable of taking that information and coming to the logical conclusion. "So their plans that involve flattery and bribery and shagging. I'm guessing that it's flattery and bribery which then in turn lead to shagging… that's not shagging for the sake of shagging. They'll be, err, melding. With us. So they can make little magical asari for when their enemy finally comes."


	7. Chapter 7

Joe's Note: I'm trying to keep this story down to neatly digestible chunks, especially since our hosts have seen fit to eliminate pretty much every method of easily saving out stories for mass or offline consumption. Sigh. Accordingly, I took advantage of a natural breakpoint in the discussion to bring things to a sudden halt at the end of last chapter… and now we're going to pick things right back up and finish that discussion. I actually went through more drafts of Chapters 5 and 6 than I care to count because it took me time to realize that this isn't a traditional _Mass Effect_ or _Harry Potter_ story; I can't just assume you guys are familiar with canon and skip exposition. I've created an entire shadow civilization that I need to shine a light on, or else you'll never know what's floating around in my head…  
Dedications &amp; Thanks: To Nicholas, Alexander, Howard, MJ, Daniel, Christopher, Jason, Chris, George, Koby, Judedeath, Ken, Thyatira, William, Wil, Thomas, Jack, Pat, Chris, Mitch, and Jess for sponsoring me on , and making it easier for me to spend more of my time writing. Additional thanks go to the incomparable LogicalPremise for his amazing set of references covering many untouched facets of the _Mass Effect_ universe, as well as listening to me ramble about ideas for the future of this story.

* * *

"So their plans that involve flattery and bribery and shagging. I'm guessing that it's flattery and bribery which then in turn lead to shagging… that's not shagging for the sake of shagging. They'll be, err, melding. With us. So they can make little magical asari for when their enemy finally comes."

Straightening up, Luna nodded enthusiastically. "Little green-eyed magical asari! And Lunasari! Obviously Calia doesn't know everything; she has no reason to. But between what I pulled from her mind and the fact that Aria had never heard of people like us? It's a pretty good guess that the International Statute of Secrecy is now an interstellar one. We might as well be the only witch and wizard in existence; if there's anyone left out there like us, nobody knows about them. That makes us an incredibly valuable commodity to the Sylléktries. And the more valuable you are, the more you can ask for during the flattery and bribery phase in return for donating to their gene pool. Forget us doing them a favor in exchange for a ride to a human colony, Harry, we're in a position where we could probably get an entire ship from them. Granted they'd probably make it conditional on us knocking up the entire crew, but… well, I suppose we'd just have to grin and bear it for the Greater Good?"

"First of all, for the love of all things holy, never make a reference to Albus Dumbledore during a discussion about sex ever again. Or Grindelwald. Whatever that was. Never ever again." Harry shuddered; those sorts of mental images about the closest thing he had to a grandfather figure were quite possibly the one thing more traumatic than the idea of his parents being intimate. "Second of all, I'm not exactly keen on the idea of getting pimped out to alien women in exchange for… well, anything. Especially since all we need to do is get to a human world, and then-"

"If not for the fact that you seem to enjoy shagging me several times a day, I'd swear you were bent or something." Circling back around from behind the couch, Luna closed the distance between them and flopped down on his lap with a huff. "And I'm not pimping you out to alien women in exchange for something, Harry. I'm pimping you out to mono-gendered aliens with strongly feminine traits."

Groaning, Harry buried his face in Luna's shoulder even as Aria enjoyed a hearty laugh at his expense. And why not? Luna was just a mild irritant to the asari, one that she could peel off and leave behind whenever Aria got tired of dealing with the blonde. Harry, on the other hand, was engaged to her. Which wasn't to say that he didn't love her, because he did. With an intensity that put his past two relationships to shame. But now and then, situations popped up that reminded him that Luna was a very… unique… young woman. Like now, for instance. Both Ginny and Daphne had gotten irate whenever he'd looked at another woman for too long. Luna delighted in it. She'd follow his line of sight, compliment him on his taste, and even point out attractive women for them to admire together. Then ask what Harry thought of bringing said woman home to their bed.

Likewise, Harry was pretty sure that having a baby with another woman - especially intentionally, but even accidentally - would get most men kicked to the curb. Luna, on the other hand, was trying to not only get him to do just that but was hoping to do so herself. Having copious amounts of sex with other women along the way. It left him feeling like he was staring at a conjured bear trap: was Luna just saying stuff like this to test him, and their relationship would implode if he was ever dumb enough to take her up on one of those offers that seemed far too good to be true? Or was she being genuine, and it was just something that appeared to be a trap but really wasn't? In which case… how long would he survive with both Luna and another woman - or two or three, as seemed to sometimes be her wont - in his life?

The chair shifted slightly as someone perched on the right arm and then a hand patted at the top of his head awkwardly. Rather than look up, Harry glanced to the side and found a pair of blue knees. Liselle? "Lovegood's got the broad strokes right but at the same time, she's definitely oversimplifying things. Coming to an agreement with my people can be as personal or as business-like as you want it to be. And no matter what path you choose to walk, you surrendering nothing of yourself but your DNA. They don't own you or control you. I mean, look at my aithntar. I dare you to say anyone tells her what to do."

Harry instinctively raised his head at that, gulping as he met Aria's narrowed blue eyes. Liselle had a point there. While he hadn't known her long, he could quite confidently say that Aria was no one's woman but her own. Or… no one's mono-gendered alien but her own. Was her still the right pronoun there? Hmm. No one's mono-gendered alien but its own? Merlin. He really needed to get in touch with some other humans and fast; his grasp of English didn't seem sufficient for life in the twenty-second century. "As long as I've got you feeling talkative, can you explain the difference? Personal and business agreements?"

"Okay, now you're the one who's oversimplifying things on us. You don't… show up at an office somewhere and then get sorted into one of two lines or something." Liselle frowned, nibbling on her lower lip gently for a few seconds before continuing. "I meant more that you can either treat it like you're bartering in the markets here for a new gun, omni-tool, or other material belonging… or treat it more like an arranged marriage that requires you to have at least one child. You can treat it like a… goddess, what's it called? I heard a human talking about it with the Patriarch just last week. A… sperm bank? You come to an agreement with the Sylléktries, they pair you with a matron they think is compatible with your genes, you meld, you leave with your payment, and they raise your daughter without you ever being a part of her life."

Given that his desire for children was part of the reason that he and Ginny hadn't worked out, Harry didn't find that option particularly palatable. "And since you're here on Omega with your, err, aithntar instead of wherever the rest of the Sylléktries live, I'm guessing there are other options."

Liselle nodded, gesturing to Aria. "My mother visits for two weeks every other month but I'm staying with Aria until I enter my matron years. Then I'll return to Óasi and become a productive member of society, whatever form that may take. If Aria wasn't who she is? She could have chosen to come live on Óasi or one of the colony worlds with my mother. Considering you don't really have a place anywhere, that might be something for you two to think about." Pausing, she looked back and forth between Harry and Luna uncertainly. "Although the fact that you're a couple might complicate that. I've never heard of an entire couple being recruited, but I'm sure they have procedures for it. Maybe they match you with prospective mothers who already live near each other? Or one or both of them are forced to pack up and move for the good of the community? Not sure, but I'm sure they'd find a way to make it work if you wanted to become Sylléktries. If you do? Ask to live on Óasi. There are enclaves for positively everything there, including a few species that you won't find anywhere else in Council space." Leaning in, she lowered her voice. "I've never seen them, but my mother claims there are even rachni living in the southern mountains…"

While her tone made it clear that her revelation was supposed to be significant, Harry had no clue why and so he added it to the top of his 'things he should research since Hermione wasn't here to do it for him' list. "Well when you put things like that, they doesn't sound nearly as bad." Harry shifted in his seat, one hand shooting up to rest on the small of Liselle's back as he noticed her tipping slightly to her right from his actions. Then Luna's hands shot out to capture one of the Sylléktria's, and Harry found himself wondering if it would have been better to risk the young asari falling off onto the floor. The soft growl from Aria's direction certainly made him think so.

To be honest, Liselle had actually managed to address the majority of his non-relationship related worries with her answers. After discovering the full extent of Dumbledore's machinations, Harry had no desire to be under anyone's thumb to that degree ever again. Knowing that his life wouldn't be reduced to stud service for random asari or indentured servitude in exchange for a short-term boon was a relief. Especially given that he'd been in this new time for all of a day so far; the idea of having options taken away before he even knew what they were rankled.

It was also good to know that he would have freedom of choice regarding any daughters he had. Given that he couldn't see himself cutting the mother of his child - whoever or whatever she may be - out of his child's life even if the Sylléktries would allow such a thing, there would probably be some relationship problems in his future… or maybe not. If Luna was indeed genuine about her desire to welcome other women into her life, the worst he might have to deal with is bickering over right side versus left and sleeping on the inside versus the outside of a bed big enough for four. Because if he did agree to this, the odds of Luna voluntarily giving up her 'space babe' were somewhere around the Cannons' chance of winning the League Cup… and it would be awfully rude to allow Luna's asari to sleep with them while banishing his Sylléktria to a separate room…

That was his story and he was sticking to it.

"I still have a lot of questions that I'm going to want answers to, and the fact that you lot are some sort of… galactic boogeyman? No, you're not really feared. Galactic legend? Myth? Whatever you want to call it, the fact that you're hidden from the rest of the galaxy means that it'll be really hard for me to find an unbiased source that verifies any answers you give me. Which in turn makes it difficult for me to trust you. Everyone always tries to cast themselves in the best possible light; even if you're being completely truthful, I have no way of knowing." Harry's gaze swept from Liselle past the still glowering Aria and onward to Calia. Liselle and Aria might actually be useful in that regard but at the end of the day, both had ties to the group and so they would have to be taken with a grain of salt just as much as Calia herself. Then something occurred to Harry and he found his eyes gravitating back over to Aria. "That, and you can't be the only game in town. There might be someone else willing to make me an equally tempting offer. Or a better one."

After a few seconds, Aria raised an eyebrow and then chuckled incredulously. "You'd better not be hoping I'm one of them, Potter. If it was just you… maybe. But I'm not letting Lovegood stay on my station a second longer than necessary. The only reason I've been this nice so far is because I don't need you getting swept up and indoctrinated by one of the people who wants to unseat me."

The weight on Harry's legs abruptly disappeared as Luna apparated across the room, reappearing on Aria's lap even as Liselle let out a squeal and tipped over to fill the space that had been vacated by the blonde. Aria stared at her new lap ornament for a few seconds before narrowing her eyes and thrusting her hand upward, only to be stymied as Luna grabbed her wrist and redirected her blast of blue energy up into the ceiling. "Are you sure that nobody is allowed to fuck with Aria? You really do need to relax a bit…"

"You really do need to get off my lap."

"You really do need to get off." Luna let out a tinkling little laugh as Aria tried to use her other hand to attack her, slapping harshly at the inside of the asari's forearm to redirect that blast before grabbing her hand and interlacing their fingers. "Nuh uh uh. We always set a safeword before things get rough. Safe, sane, and consensual is how things work in this house."

"I do believe that's the first sensible thing that I've heard come out of you." Aria gave her left arm a few experimental shakes before apparently realizing that she wouldn't be dislodging Luna anytime soon… at least not without- "For the record, the only reason I haven't peeled you off me yet with a biotic flare is because I'm not stupid enough to damage goods that the Sylléktries are after. Otherwise you'd be a smear on the far wall by now." Grumbling under her breath, Aria rearranged the blonde so that Luna was sitting with her back to Aria's chest instead of across her thighs. Then she leaned in closer, pressing herself against Luna before bumping her cheek against the smaller woman's. "Hmm. You're as annoying as a hanar on red sand… but at least you're a warm annoyance. Still going to get revenge for this someday, though. You should probably sleep with your wand under your pillow. And before you even say it, no, you cannot sleep with your wand under my pillow."

Harry bit his lip to avoiding laughing both at Aria's irritated expression and the thoughtful one that her words evoked from Luna. "But if I end up sleeping with my head on your chest, wouldn't sleeping with my wand under my pillow be rather uncomfortable for you?"

Mouth opening and closing several times, Aria eventually just let out a sigh and stared up at the ceiling in despair. "I'm walking into these things worse than that two-eyed batarian I saw last week. Any chance we can get this discussion back on topic? I do have places to go, a station to run… might go shoot a random blonde human for cathartic reasons…"

Doing his level best to ignore the last bit, Harry nodded and then turned his attention back to Calia. "Just for the record… say I do agree to this. Was Luna being serious when she said we could ask for an entire ship from your people?"

"No, I was being Luna. Sirius was your godfather."

"…that's your one time for the day. Remember what the penalty is for doing it again." Luna's eyes went wide and she pantomimed zipping her lips, making Harry smirk faintly before returning to his conversation with Calia. "The question stands, though. What sorts of things do people ask for in terms of payment? Compensation? Is there a way to phrase that so I don't feel like I'm being studded out to you?"

Calia let out something more giggle than laugh at that and then shook her head. "After what I saw of you and Luna, I think stud is about right in your case. As for the ship? In your case, it's possible. I don't remember anyone ever getting that much of a… reward for services rendered… in the past, at least for a single child agreement. Then again, I've never heard of both halves of a couple being targeted for recruitment together either, much less a couple that represents an entire new subspecies of a race. The more I think about it, though, the less outrageous it seems. My father was just a smarter than average salarian, and the Sylléktries hollowed out an asteroid for him and outfitted it with everything he needed to keep running his experiments for the remaining fifteen years of his life. Mind you, he melded with five asari in one day to earn that but again, average salarian versus only two specimens of a new subspecies of humanity. I think you've got the advantage going into negotiations. Especially considering who they're sending." Leaning forward, Calia looked both ways before grinning conspiratorially. "You've attracted so much attention that Matriarch Luciana herself is coming to Omega to meet with you two."

That revelation elicited a gasp from Liselle and a string of curses from Aria that Harry's omni-tool either couldn't or was too polite to translate. He looked from one asari to the next, and then finally vocalized his question when it became clear that nobody was going to volunteer an answer. "What? Is that bad? Good? I don't know who she is."

"That makes at least four of us, Potter, probably five. Matriarch Luciana is a ghost among ghosts, even to someone with my resources. Except for the fact that she exists, nobody can tell me anything about her… including Pelesa. It's not that she won't. She can't. Even her own people know next to nothing about her. But all of a sudden, she's willing to come out of hiding. To talk to you. Here, on my station. Fucking wonderful. Get off me. Now." For once realizing that discretion was the better part of valor, Luna obediently apparated over to sit next to Calia on the couch, allowing Aria to rise to her feet. Glancing over at Harry, she quickly thrust her hand out to stop Liselle when she likewise made to stand. "No. I need to do some thinking. Get some of my advisors together. You're safer here than anywhere else for right now, since I'm going to have to put some extra protection on Potter and Lovegood." Turning, Aria stormed out of the apartment, the door quietly sliding shut behind her.

Silence reigned for a few seconds and then Luna drew her wand, summoning a deck of cards from one of the open trunks resting against the wall of the bedroom area. Plucking it out of the air, she grinned widely. "Strip Exploding Snap, anyone?"


	8. Chapter 8

Joe's Note: One of the perks to being a fanfic writer as opposed to a published writer - unless you're famous enough to get multiple editions of your work published, that is - is that you can always go back and fix things later. Like adding more detail to Chapter 1 to outline the veil's workings, or moving a scene from Chapter 6 to this chapter and adding an additional six hundred words of conversation to Chapter 6 to compensate. Accordingly, this chapter is now part of Chapter 6 and part of the original Chapter 7 with a new scene added into the middle. And because part of the first Chapter 7 is here, what's now Chapter 8 will now be fleshed out more in a few spots. Enjoy.  
Dedications &amp; Thanks: To Nicholas, Alexander, Howard, MJ, Daniel, Christopher, Jason, Chris, George, Koby, Judedeath, Ken, Thyatira, William, Wil, Thomas, Jack, Pat, Chris, Mitch, and Jess for sponsoring me on , and making it easier for me to spend more of my time writing. Additional thanks go to the incomparable LogicalPremise for his amazing set of references covering many untouched facets of the _Mass Effect_ universe, as well as listening to me ramble about ideas for the future of this story.

* * *

"This one must confess that she is curious why you instructed Scout Yaan to use old encryption protocols that we know have been cracked-"

"By Cerberus and the Shadow Broker before them? It's actually quite simple, Epipsychidion: if they don't know what we've found and that we're coming, they won't be there to meet us. And according to our mole within their organization, Cerberus has reacted exactly as I predicted they would: they have dispatched the very operative I've been investigating on a mission to stop us from getting our hands on Yaan's prospects." Bringing her mug of hot chocolate up to her face, High Matriarch Luciana slowly inhaled through her nose and took a moment to savor the aroma before meeting her companion's eyes. "I must say, I was surprised to hear that you would accompany me yourself rather than delegating the task of my protection to another justicar."

Remaining stiffly at attention and motionless, Justicar Mistress Epipsychidion was silent for so long that Luciana would have thought her asleep or perhaps even dead if not for the slow pulses of light running down the length of her abnormally long - at least for a Thessian asari - crest. Finally, after nearly two minutes of silence, Epipsychidion spoke. "This one has been contemplating her place in the grander scheme of things as of late. Thanks to our careful genetic screening and overall approach to reproduction, my justicars have no Ardat-Yakshi to watch over. We have no fugitives to hunt, nor any great conflicts to mediate and defuse. While the Code provides us with tools to navigate by, we are a ship adrift at sea with no course to follow. And so it makes me wonder if it is selfish of us to continue to exist merely out of a sense of tradition. Our materiel could be used by the military proper. My followers, likewise."

Luciana arched a brow at that; she couldn't honestly say she was surprised by the admission, having picked up on the thoughts when they first started forming several years ago thanks to the gifts inherited from her aithntar. Why Epipsychidion was bringing them to her now, though, was another question entirely… one that she did not know the answer to. "And what does that have to do with your desire to accompany me?" The matriarch's brain worked furiously, rejecting theories almost as fast as she could form them. But the more possibilities she dismissed, the more Luciana found herself coming back to one that - while on the surface seemed utterly illogical - could very well be the truth. "Your oaths forbid you from taking a mate and having a family."

"This one has been contemplating the matter for some time but yes, Scout Yaan's discovery has made it a more pressing matter. What these two humans can do is unlike anything this one has ever seen, and she has spent centuries mastering biotic powers known to as few as your true face." The pulses of light beneath the skin of Epipsychidion's crest began to grow more frequent, other colors occasionally mixing themselves into the more common blue-white. "While there is nothing in her oaths that would stop this one from exploring the potential of Potter and Lovegood… yes, those same oaths would stop her from being a part of bringing that potential to our cause."

Sipping at her hot chocolate, Luciana realized that she didn't disagree with anything Epipsychidion was saying. The justicars were indeed an antiquated, unnecessary part of both historical and modern Sylléktrion society that their people's founding matriarch had included solely for tradition. They were a waste of resources, and since being a justicar was still seen as incredibly prestigious? They were also a waste of some of the best genes their society could offer up. Dissolving them would free up everything from ships to well-trained warriors to prime genetic samples; as it stood, justicars refused to serve as even aithntars, much less mothers of future Sylléktries. As for the more personal aspect of Epipsychidion's request? What she was proposing would be a pairing of great value: the daughter of one of her peoples' most gifted biotics and a human with 'magic' would be truly fearsome when she came of age. But… her position gave her precious few opportunities to have a sense of humor, and there was no way she was going to pass up an opportunity to have a bit of fun at her longtime friend and bodyguard's expense. "You've never even met a human before, Epipsychidion, much less these particular humans. And you're asking for permission to destroy a fundamental aspect of our society so that you can throw yourself at them? I could have sworn that you were a matriarch, not some hormonal maiden. What's next, that purple armor of yours ending up crumpled at the base of a pole in some strip club?"

"This one notes that you have brought a rather interesting selection of dresses along on this mission." The corner of Epipsychidion's mouth quirked upward as she looked off to her left at where Luciana had hung a sleek black number from a hook mounted on the wall of her cabin. "This one posits that she is not the only one interested in behaving like a 'hormonal maiden' with someone she has never met before, much less spoken to."

Luciana rolled her eyes before thrusting out her left arm. The teal biotic aura unique to her particular breed of Sylléktries coalesced around her forearm and hand, and then a datapad sailed across the room and into her hand. Twisting slightly, she pulsed her biotics again and sent it flying toward Epipsychidion, who caught it neatly and activated it. "This one dares you to say that you wouldn't find this particular human interesting too."

After staring at the screen for a few seconds, Epipsychidion looked up and offered Luciana a full blown smile. "This one finds blondes to be more aesthetically pleasing. And Lovegood has the superior chest."

While the latter was true and the former wholly subjective, Lawson was hardly without her advantages. A level of genetic perfection that went hand-in-hand with Sylléktrion ideals, incredibly powerful conventional biotics by human standards, eyes that Luciana was already planning to include in all their offspring, and in the immortal words of a noteworthy member of one of Earth's ancient chivalric orders? She liked big butts and she could not lie…

* * *

Getting ready for her day consisted of many steps, each executed with a casual familiarity born of repetition. First came her hardsuit's matte black body stocking. A wondrous piece of modern technology, the latest iteration was carefully climate controlled by a VI monitor so that she was never too hot nor too cold regardless of the environment she found herself in. Which was nice, because 'flushed' was always photogenic… but 'gross and sweaty', not so much. Then came her standard issue N7 hardsuit boots and greaves, layered with thick plates of ablative ceramic armor interwoven with kinetic barrier generators. Her least favorite step followed: the curling plates that protected her thighs from attack. Not once in her career - including simulations and training - had she ever sustained a hit to them, and they slowed her top running speed by a good four or five miles per hour. Sadly, her CO didn't find 'come on, what's the worst that could happen to me?' to be a convincing argument, and so she was stuck with the cuisses… for now.

The minute she got her first command, on the other hand…

Next came a chestplate that was remarkably sleek compared to the piece that it had replaced; an asari design from Serrice Council, the 'auxiliary power cells' meant to augment biotic abilities had been carefully retuned to enhance her… decidedly more esoteric powers. As expected given its origin, it was far more flattering to her curvaceous figure, which was part of the reason that the Systems Alliance had eaten the cost of acquiring it for her. After all, the Lion of Mindoir needed to be as photogenic as possible both on and off the battlefield. Never knew when the press might be watching in hopes of capturing her latest heroic feat. Her vambraces, rerebraces, and pauldrons were likewise of asari extraction, each containing additional retuned power cells to boost her abilities further. She occasionally got dirty looks from more xenophobic soldiers who were knowledgeable enough to recognize what she was wearing, but fuck them. The results spoke for themselves. Or at least they did to her and the few people cleared to know about the full extent of her 'uniqueness'.

Last but certainly not least came the prototype Mnemonic Visor that she was currently testing for Ariake Technologies. Easily as expensive as a standard N7 hardsuit, the visor - like the Serrice Council components of her armor - had been designed with the intention of enhancing the abilities of biotic specialists. With some careful tuning and modification, it lived up to that claim for her: she could fling her spells harder, further, and with increased accuracy. That last part was a definite bonus; her grandmother had once snidely remarked that she had the accuracy 'of a third year boy with his first Hogsmeade whore'. Which she would have disputed, had it not come on the heels of her blowing a hole in the side of the family manor while trying to duel the hundred and twenty-eight year old woman.

Although that was positively tame compared to what had emerged from her great-great-grandmother's mouth when she'd seen the damage. For a bicentenarian, Daphne Greengrass could be surprisingly energetic when she wanted to.

Pushing the visor up onto the top of her head, Ismene Shepard raised her wand and gently rubbed it over her left eyelid followed by the right, using magic to apply flawless winged eyeliner along with a bit of aubergine eyeshadow to bring out the green eyes possessed by every woman in the family since great-grandmother Eirene. Well, the women on her mother's side. Hannah Shepard had brown eyes, as did most of her relatives, but given that she'd been the source of the 'male' PGCs during the IVF process, she didn't really count as a woman insofar as genetic heritage… did she? Well, whatever she was, Hannah was responsible for Ismene's pitch black curls, her muggle genetics evidently sufficient to overwhelm a hair color that had run in the Greengrass family since the eighteenth century. Probably Ismene's freckles, too. There wasn't a single Greengrass in recorded history with anything but clear skin.

Two additional charms turned her freckled face flawless and tinted her lips black; she was in the mood for something on the darker side today. Slotting her wand into the special compartment that had been added to the top of her right vambrace, Ismene ran her fingers through her hair a few times to fluff up her curls before turning to leave her quarters… and then pausing. There was a new message at her terminal. Which she had checked right before heading into the shower. And then turned off. All the way off. Frowning, she approached it cautiously and brought it out of standby mode, the mail program opening itself to display the new message without her so much as touching the screen.

_From: W.I.T.C.H._

_The Greenest Grass:_

_One of the devices I enchanted before my death using a sample of Potter's blood came to life yesterday and shows no sign of going dormant again. Based on your ASVAB scores, and OCS and ICT evaluations, I'm sure you're smart enough to figure out what that means. Given that I lack a body at the present, it's highly likely that you'll reach Potter before I do. When you do, try to forget the foolishness born of bitterness that the Ice Bitch has filled your head with regarding him. While I called them both my friends - he was my best friend, even - I will never hesitate to admit that he is a frighteningly powerful wizard who holds the heart of a veritable mad woman. You are the sole good thing to come out of the House of Greengrass in the past three centuries; I would be disappointed to learn that you ended up as a smear on a wall somewhere._

_Consider my debt to your family repaid._

Ismene's eyebrows slowly inched toward her hairline as she scrolled through the message. So her great-great-grandfather - and presumably the fiancée he'd disappeared with - had finally turned up, and if the stories that she'd heard about him were anything to go by? It probably wouldn't be long before he started making waves here in the twenty-second century. The corner of Ismene's mouth quirked upward. Sounded like things were about to get… interesting.

* * *

"Why do they have bagpipes, Luna?"

"I'm introducing them to my Scottish heritage!"

"You're not Scottish, Luna. You're English. The Lovegoods have had ties to Devon for generations, remember?"

"Oh. Right." Luna paused, furrowing her brow in confusion, before eventually offering Harry a shrug and turning back to what she was doing. "Well, I'm sure my mother must have been from Scotland, then. Otherwise, how do you explain my love of bagpipes? From the top, ladies! And make sure your barriers are nice and solid, because I'm switching to live ammo!"

As the sextet of catsuit-clad asari resumed playing a vaguely familiar tune, Harry shook his head and slowly retreated back over to where Liselle, Calia, and Krína were waiting for him. In the three days since Calia's revelation that they'd attracted the attention of someone powerful enough to make the self-styled Queen of Omega flinch, Harry had spent the majority of his time poring over the information available on the 'extranet', trying to learn more about the strange new world they'd blundered their way into. Luna, on the other hand, had been gone by the time he woke up each morning, generally not returning until it was time for dinner and a shag. Evidently she'd been busy. Peering back over his shoulder, Harry raised an eyebrow before nodding in Luna's direction. "I'm not even going to ask where the bagpipes came from after seeing what you lot can do with those 'fabricators' of yours. But… has anyone gotten a straighter answer out of her than I just did? Because I'm kinda morbidly curious what she's up to."

The three asari standing before him all shook their heads, and then Krína looked off to Harry's right before making a beckoning gesture. Following her gaze, he found himself staring at a pair of unfamiliar asari: one with teal skin and armor heavier than even Calia's, and a decidedly younger-looking asari in the same black and white leather getup as the rest of Aria's elite security forces. Raising a hand, the teal asari finished her conversation with what was likely her subordinate before dismissing her with a wave of that same hand so that she could make her way over to join Harry and his companions. It wasn't until she was in front of them that Harry really got a sense for how massive the woman was; she was easily a head taller than him and while he was sure some of her bulk was due to the armor, there was no disguising that she was built like a Harpies beater. "Harry, this is Alyona. She's the leader of our commando unit; this is the first time you've met her because she doesn't micromanage her team leaders when she gives them assignments. Alyona, you obviously know who Harry is. Sorry for interrupting whatever you were doing, but we were wondering… what the hell is his fiancée up to with those maidens?"

"Supposedly? Testing to see if our 'space magic' will make some old human warfare techniques viable again." Crossing her arms over what was either an impressive chest or copious amounts of armor plating - or likely a mixture of the two, given the asari that Harry had met thus far - Alyona snorted. "She started out babbling about 'shield maidens' and then moved on to scaring the shit out of whatever 'Germans' are. I'm not going to lie; I tuned her out about thirty seconds in and just stared at her chest for the rest of her pitch. You're a lucky, lucky man, Potter. But since Aria's orders were to keep Lovegood busy and away from her daughter… I figured why not? It's not like she's-" Alyona was rudely interrupted by three gunshots in rapid succession, making Harry jump and spin around. Laughing gleefully, Luna shifted her aim and fired off a fourth shot before sweeping back along the line of asari and unloading a fifth, adding more ripples to the bubble of blue energy that surrounded the group. "-hurting anyone. Athame's tits, Lovegood, are you fucking insane? How did you even get the pistol out of practice mode?!"


	9. Chapter 9

Joe's Note: I'd like to start out by pointing out that if you leave me a review and do not have PMs turned on, I cannot respond to it. Which will then allow me to segue into… everyone slap Doombug upside the head. Because while yes, I have been away from this story for a bit - writing others, working, attending conventions and meeting George Takei, Janet Varney, and Amber Benson among others - there's really nothing like a 'this story is clearly abandoned' bitch review to make you want to close the chapter you're actively working on when the review alert pops up in your mail client. -.-  
Dedications &amp; Thanks: To Nicholas, Alexander, Howard, MJ, Daniel, Christopher, Jason, Chris, George, Koby, Judedeath, Ken, Thyatira, William, Wil, Thomas, Jack, Pat, Chris, Mitch, and Jess for sponsoring me on , and making it easier for me to spend more of my time writing. Additional thanks go to the incomparable LogicalPremise for his amazing set of references covering many untouched facets of the _Mass Effect_ universe, as well as listening to me ramble about ideas for the future of this story.

* * *

"…since Aria's orders were to keep Lovegood busy and away from her daughter… I figured why not? It's not like she's-" Alyona was rudely interrupted by three gunshots in rapid succession, making Harry jump and spin around. Laughing gleefully, Luna shifted her aim and fired off a fourth shot before sweeping back along the line of asari and unloading a fifth, adding more ripples to the bubble of blue energy that surrounded the group. "-hurting anyone. Athame's tits, Lovegood, are you fucking insane? How did you even get the pistol out of practice mode?!"

Pausing for a few seconds as her Phalanx vented waste heat, Luna twirled gracefully and resumed peppering her pet project with bullets. Not only had she managed to get the gun switched back over to firing live ammunition, Harry noticed, but she'd managed to turn off the blue laser sight. Made sense; it was hard to surprise people when they knew exactly where you were aiming. In between two shots, Luna reached over to pat her left wrist and then raised her arm as her omni-tool came to life around it. "It's amazing what Hermione can do for me when I ask her nicely. And unlike the real Hermione, it doesn't bore me with explanations of exactly how it's doing what I asked it to. Besides, practice mode is worthless. I don't need to know what my accuracy rating is, especially since I'm not even trying to hit them. I need to know whether their barriers can hold up to attacks. That requires real bullets."

While that actually sounded fairly logical to Harry - actual logic, even, not just Luna logic - Alyona wasn't as easily placated. Stalking over to the blonde, she forcibly separated Luna from her pistol, using her biotics to suspend it in the air where Luna couldn't reach it. Then Alyona grabbed the red and black leather outfit that Luna was wearing with both hands, pulling her in close as the maidens went silent one by one. "No. Shooting. My. Girls."

"Can I shoot you instead?"

"…no."

"Well then how am I supposed to test my theory? Discovery requires experimentation." Wriggling a bit, Luna reached up to pull her wand from behind her ear and then she twisted, firing a stunner at the nearest commando. By the time the bolt of red energy finished scattering over the asari's barrier, Alyona had shifted positions and grabbed Luna from behind, pulling the witch's arms upward and pinning them to her chest. Harry shook his head in bemused resignation as his fiancée leaned up and pressed a kiss to Alyona's jaw before grinning widely. "If you wanted to get close to me, you could have just asked."

Alyona inhaled slowly and deeply, then jerked her head to the side as Luna got more daring and tried to kiss her on the lips. Releasing the blonde, she stalked back over to where Harry was waiting with Krína, Calia, and Liselle. "You know, Potter, at first I envied you. Now I'm pretty sure I pity you. I'm pretty sure I can guess what you see in her, but… I'm also reasonably sure that it's really not worth it. I'd love to give her a corrective kneecapping the way I would if one of my commandos acted that way, but I don't need you retaliating with your crazy stick biotics or anything…"

That one made Harry raise an eyebrow. "Crazy stick biotics?"

"According to Lovegood, we have strange space magic. From my perspective, though? We're the normal ones and you two have some kind of crazy stick biotics." That seemed… fair enough, really. If Luna was going to redefine the asari's abilities using terms more familiar to her, surely they were allowed to do the same to her and Harry. Alyona looked Harry up and down slowly before directing a pointed stare at his left wrist. "Speaking of your crazy stick biotics… any chance you'd be willing to show me what you can do? One-on-one, your powers against mine? I'm not going to lie; I'm kinda curious to see how much of a waste Aria ordering us to guard you two really is."

Harry thought about that one for a moment before shrugging and nodding. Clearly Alyona - and the rest of the commandos that Aria had assigned to watch over him and Luna - were well aware of their powers and therefore exempt from Aria's demand that they keep them secret to avoid drawing attention. And it would be interesting to see what biotics were capable of, beyond that odd little 'kanquess' teleportation of Aria's, barriers, and levitating objects a few feet off the ground. Not to mention that it would distract Luna from her little project before she did something that really pissed Alyona off. "Right then. Just out of curiosity, though, how thick is that armor?" The question earned Harry a raised eyebrow of his own, and he drew his wand before flicking it at a piece of random debris on the ground, transfiguring it into a rabbit. Alyona jumped in surprise before swearing under her breath, making Harry a chuckle. "Transfiguration. Turning one object into another. I'd really rather not try to transfigure a piece of your armor and end up taking a chunk of flesh along for the ride. I don't think you want that either…"

Opening and closing her mouth several times, Alyona watched as the rabbit hopped its way over to her, circling around her several times before flopping down across her left foot. "No, I can safely say that I do not want to get part of myself turned into… whatever this thing is." Were rabbits extinct, then? Or were they just rare enough off of Earth that not every asari knew what they were? "On the other hand, my biotics can tear up your flesh pretty badly… so I guess fair's fair? Just try not to rip any of my limbs all the way off or anything. Medigel can do a lot, but I'm not entirely krogan." Before Harry could formulate a response to that, Alyona shot him a wicked grin and thrust her hand out, sending him flying backward with a pulse of blue light.

Caught completely off-guard, Harry found himself flying through the air for several feet and then hitting the ground hard, rolling for another yard or two before eventually coming to a stop. Pushing himself up off the ground, Harry shot Alyona a glare as he clambered back to his feet. Behind him, he could hear Luna's outraged gasp and he raised his hand to keep her from rushing forward and involving himself in their duel… or quite possibly bringing it to an abrupt end by way of some truly vicious piece of magic. "So we're fighting dirty, then?"

"I'm part of a pirate queen's security force. Are you really surprised?"

"…when you put it like that? No. Not really." Harry raised his wand and cast a basic shield as he studied Alyona warily, debating what avenue of attack to attempt against an opponent that he still very little about. Given that Luna's stunner had been easily dispersed by a biotic barrier… flicking his wrist, Harry vanished Alyona's armor piece by piece, until all that remained was a clingy undersuit that was stylistically similar to the commandos' catsuits but even thinner. Then he vanished the pistol and rifle that had fallen to the floor with the armor's departure for good measure. "Hope none of that was valuable."

The next few seconds felt like an eternity as Alyona's gaze dropped to her hands, then swept up her arms to her underdressed body before finally returning to Harry's. "It took my bondmate three months to design and build that armor for me. If you just disintegrated it or something, you… are a dead man."

Harry ruthlessly suppressed the burst of regret that her words created; if the armor actually meant that much to her, he reasoned, then she wouldn't be running around in it for day-to-day work. And besides, even if she was being honest about her bondmate designing it, it had probably been created using a fabricator. Most things around here were. Flicking his wand, he enlarged the rabbit to nearly three times its natural size before siccing it on Alyona's relatively unprotected calf. "To be precise, I vanished it. I'm not sure where stuff that's been vanished goes, to be honest, but I've never heard of anyone being able to bring something back from wherever it ends up. So… oops? And for the record, scarier people than you have told me that."

Growling, Alyona gathered a roiling ball of blue energy in her left hand and then flicked it downward, letting it skitter over the skintight biotic barrier that she was generating before slamming into Harry's transfigured mega rabbit and reducing it to a bloody smear on the floor. "How many of them are the favorite daughter of a krogan mercenary?" Lunging forward, Alyona slipped into the kanquess and crossed the distance between them in the blink of an eye, emerging less than a foot away from Harry. The residual energy would have sent him stumbling back if not for the teal asari reaching out and fisting her hands in his shirt. "I! Am! Asari!"

And then she smashed her forehead into his face.

The floor came rushing up to greet Harry as he landed flat on his ass, staring up at Alyona in disbelief as his hands rose to cover his bleeding nose. "Ow! I… what the fuck was that?!"

"What? I'm not going to yell 'I am Krogan!' like my aithntar does." Alyona rubbed the back of her hand across her forehead, wiping off away some splattered blood that Harry was pretty sure had come from his nose. "That would just sound stupid."

"No! The headbutt! Who even does that?" Harry scowled as he used a charm to snap his nose back into the proper shape and heal it, before apparating away to put a bit of distance between them as he climbed to his feet. "I thought this was supposed to be biotics versus magic, not pub brawling."

Arching a brow, Alyona looked back over her shoulder at the bloody smear she'd created. "…your thing bit me."

"Animated animals are one of the staples of combat transfiguration! That's magic!"

"If you want, I'll hold the biotic barrier next time I headbutt you? I don't know how much of your face will be left if I do, but I can…"

Or not. Narrowing his eyes, Harry turned on his heel and apparated back across the room to a spot behind Alyona before slamming a Banishing Charm into her back and sending her tumbling. "No more Mister Nice Wizard." Thrusting his wand out, Harry gathered his power and bound it to his will before releasing it to envelope Alyona and bend her to his will.

* * *

"…my chief of security is a what?"

"According to the extranet, it's an Earth animal called a… platypus, ma'am."

Aria looked up from the datapad in her hand, mouthed the word 'platypus', and then returned her attention to the live feed from one of Omega's few - carefully cultivated and painstakingly maintained - green areas. Two commandos from her elite guard unit were sitting on the bank of the artificial river and sipping drinks as they watched over some sort of teal monstrosity that was playing in the water. "Why is Alyona-"

"You're under the impression that you're dealing with an Alyona-shaped platypus. You're not; it's merely a teal platypus made from the matter that's usually shaped like Alyona. That's why transfiguring people into animals is generally frowned upon in the wizarding world: they essentially become the animal, with all the dangers that entails. The food chain, for instance." Jerking upright, Aria's eyes widened as she realized that she wasn't alone on her couch; at some point, Lovegood had teleported into her private lounge without her even noticing. Athame's tits. Couldn't they at least pretend to respect her privacy and personal space? Lovegood waggled her fingers playfully before leaning forward, planting her elbows on her knees as she rested her chin in her palm. "I wonder if she's venomous? Generally only male platypus are, but I don't know if Harry turned her into a female platypus or a monogendered platypus. Or if a monogendered platypus would be venomous or not, for that matter."

Opening her mouth to snap at the blonde, Aria closed it with an audible click as she decided that discretion was the better part of valor. While she was the undisputed ruler of Omega… her opponent could teleport, meld through nothing more than eye contact, and - assuming her abilities were similar to her fiancé's - potentially turn Aria into a purple animal of some sort. And Aria greatly preferred her current existence as a purple asari, thank you very much. "When can I look forward to having Alyona back? Or is she stuck like that? Because if she is, I…" She trailed off, brow furrowing. "Can't have him shot without you doing something strange to me as revenge. Can't lock you two in your room because you'd like that too much. Can't lock you two in separate rooms because you'd probably seduce your guards or something. Well shit."

Lovegood tilted her head to the side before shrugging and nodding. "That does sound like something I'd do, yes. She'd have to be really cute, though, so that I can sell Harry on keeping her after we're reunited. Krína, maybe? Harry is a tad Oedipal; she may not be a redhead but she does share his mother's name…"

"Are all humans this disgusting, or is it just you two?"

"I think just us. I remember that Hermione seemed quite horrified by my suggestion that she dye her hair red and straighten it so that Harry would be more likely to let her join us in bed."

Silence reigned for almost a minute as Aria stared at Lovegood, trying to determine whether or not the blonde was being serious… and doing her best to ignore the fact that Lovegood was staring at her chest rather unashamedly that entire time. Before things could go any further, though, Bray cleared his throat. "Ma'am? Your… special guests… evidently were traveling under a non-standard IFF. Or rather, a standard IFF rather than properly identifying themselves. The Sylléktries have docked and made their way onto the station already; if the automated systems hadn't tagged a handful of the more regular visitors via facial recognition and alerted us, we never would have known."

Tearing her gaze away from Lovegood, Aria stared at Bray in disbelief. "They what? Where are they?"

"Erm…" Glancing down at his datapad, all four of Bray's eyes widened. "Here in Afterlife, ma'am." He shot a nervous look over at the entrance to Aria's private lounge area, and she followed his gaze to find a quartet of asari waiting for her. Given that Bray had mentioned 'a handful' being recognized by the computers and three of the four faces were new to Aria, that meant that there were more Sylléktries… somewhere on her station. She'd worry about it later, though, after she'd dealt with the current situation. "I'll, uh, see myself out."

"Good idea. I'm sure Aria doesn't need her subordinates seeing her getting groped like a common dancer." Stalking into the lounge like the predator that she was, Pelesa crossed the distance between them with a handful of long-legged strides. Reaching down, she grabbed the back of Aria's head with one hand and the unsuspecting asari's right breast with the other and dragged her into a rough kiss. As much as she'd missed her on-again, off-again lover, Aria did have a reputation to maintain and so even as she moaned into Pelesa's mouth, she drew her pistol and pressed the barrel against the taller woman's ribs. Her lips curling into a smirk against Aria's, Pelesa gave the breast in her hand one last squeeze before catching Aria's lower lip between her teeth and tugging it harshly as she pulled away. "Hope you've gotten a better bed since last time I visited."

Before Aria could reply - in the affirmative; she'd bought a new carbon fiber bed frame after having her century-old Thessian péfko wood bed destroyed during Pelesa's last visit - her lover was making her way over to take up a position on the left side of the lounge's entrance. As a massive asari looked the lounge over with wary eyes before assuming a matching position on the right side of the gap, Aria was reminded of her unwanted companion by a soft giggle. "I like these people already."

Aria rolled her eyes in response, rubbing Pelesa's trademark midnight blue lipstick off using the back of her right hand. "You would, Lovegood. You would." Almost perfectly in sync, the two guards reached behind their backs and pulled out a quartet of metal orbs each. Aria tensed as Pelesa and her companion tossed them into the air, watching warily as they floated off under their own power to take up positions at both cardinal and ordinal points around the perimeter of her lounge. Curving fields of hard light snapped into place between them, and then the noise of the club abruptly died off as curtains of rippling flame erupted into existence, cutting the lounge off from the rest of Afterlife. "Just so you know, I'm keeping those."

"They're a gift, glikia mou. I designed and programmed them myself." Pelesa grinned widely before blowing Aria a kiss. "Glad you like them."

How… thoughtful. Maybe she'd fight a little harder than usual when they eventually made it to the bedroom tonight, Aria mused. Her brows arched as the remaining two asari stepped through the projected flames that covered the entrance to the lounge; so her new toys served as sound dampeners and visual obstructions but weren't actually barriers. Good to know. As her visitors approached Aria and her perpetually annoying companion, it became very obvious who the Sylléktries judged most important at the moment. Namely because Aria found herself staring up at what was easily identifiable as a hanar-bred Sylléktria, pulses of blue-white light running down the length of her abnormally long and translucent crest. One of the fantastically rare Syllektrión justicars, based on her outfit.

The asari who was presumably the mysterious Matriarch Luciana, on the other hand, opted to stand in front of Lovegood, her head completely concealed by the hood of the cloak she was wearing but clearly inclined so that she could stare down at the blonde. After eyeing Lovegood in silence for nearly a minute, she finally nodded decisively and turned to her justicar companion before undoing her cloak. Shrugging it off, she lay it over the taller asari's proffered arm and then turned back to face them. The reason for Pelesa's gift - and the intense secrecy surrounding the matriarch - became immediately apparent as Aria found herself staring into four golden eyes arranged horizontally rather than in two stacked pairs. "Well, I suppose that explains the name. Collectors, eh?"


	10. Chapter 10

Joe's Note: I'd like to start out by thanking papiliokaze for the awesome new addition to this story's summary. Probably the funniest review I've gotten in two or three years. Moving on, a few more people guessed what Luciana's ancestry is. Rock on. For all of you who haven't yet - or are only here because you like _Harry Potter_ and my general brand of insanity - we'll be digging deeper into that particular mystery in this chapter. We should also be seeing the Cerberus contingent in another chapter or two, and possibly another look in on human's future Spectre. Kinda surprised at the lack of reaction to her first appearance back in Chapter 7; I didn't think any of you would see that coming, especially given her portrayal in the story that inspired this one…  
Dedications &amp; Thanks: To Nicholas, Alexander, Howard, MJ, Daniel, Christopher, Leigh, Noh, Jason, Chris, George, Koby, Judedeath, Ken, Thyatira, William, Wil, Thomas, Jack, Pat, Chris, Mitch, and Jess for sponsoring me on , and making it easier for me to spend more of my time writing. Additional thanks go to the incomparable LogicalPremise for his amazing set of references covering many untouched facets of the _Mass Effect_ universe, as well as listening to me ramble about ideas for the future of this story.

* * *

"Well, I suppose that explains the name. Collectors, eh?"

Ah yes, Aria would know what the Reapers' current thralls looked like, wouldn't she? After all, she allowed them to operate out of her station with impunity. Luciana made a note to raise the woman's clearance despite her lack of firm commitment to their cause; she had a feeling that they would gain an ally against the Collector's predations once Aria knew who and what they really were. And if learning that she was indirectly aiding the Reapers with their cycle of galactic genocide against all spacefaring sentients didn't sway Aria? Upon her return to Óasi, Luciana would need to sit down with the archons to discuss removing Liselle and other assets from Omega… along with the practicality of invading and subjugating the station. "Not quite. Or perhaps right in a way, but not entirely so."

Aria opened her mouth to question that, only to find herself cut off by the one - or rather, one of the two - that Luciana was actually on the station to see. "You have four eyes." Unaffected by the glare that Aria shot her way, Luna leaned forward as she stared up at Luciana in wide-eyed fascination. "And you're not part-batarian. Their eyes are arranged vertically, not horizontally."

"And you, Luna Lovegood, are a small blonde human who is currently wearing something that is far too stylistically similar to a Thessian justicar's outfit to be mere coincidence." Luciana let out a soft chuckle as Luna merely shrugged in response, her purple dress brushing against the floor as she closed the remaining few feet and leaned down so her face was mere inches from Luna's. "You have clearly been gifted with fantastic powers of observation, little one. Is there anything else you'd like to share with us?"

Rather than take advantage of their closeness by leaning in for a kiss - as Luciana honestly expected based on Calia's reports about the woman - Luna actually pulled back a bit… and then her eyes dipped to stare unashamedly at the exposed tops of the asari's breasts. After almost a full minute of intense inspection, silver eyes slid back upward to meet Luciana's quartet of golden orbs and then the corners of Luna's mouth inched upward. "You have an amazing rack."

Groaning in disgust, Aria buried her face in her hands even as Luciana burst into loud laughter at the blonde's comment. She really needed to get off of Óasi more often, she decided; it was genuinely refreshing to deal with people who treated her with none of the reverence that came with a position she was essentially stuck with due to her heritage. And while she had no real interest in Luna, it was always nice - especially at her age - to hear that someone- "This one is of the opinion that more than a handful is a waste." Luciana shot an incredulous look back over her right shoulder, making Epipsychidion cross her arms over her chest defensively and look away. Seriously? Last time she'd had checked, Epipsychidion had been well into her seven hundreds, not seventy. "This one's are also significantly perkier."

"Yes they are. But while I generally prefer quality over quantity, quantity is a quality all its own when you're in the mood to go motorboating." Blinking owlishly, Luciana returned her attention to Luna, who cocked her head to the side curiously as she looked from Luciana to a point over her shoulder - presumably Epipsychidion - and back several times. "Why does everyone look confused? Is that not a thing anymore? Or does it have a different name now? I'm talking about when you press your face into someone's cleavage and shake your head back and forth rapidly. Some people - myself included - like to accompany it with noises."

"Is that what it's called? I remember a few of my dancers mentioning that humans do it to them, but I…" Trailing off, Aria shook her head. "Why am I letting myself get distracted? I really, really don't care. Matriarch, I'm a bit too attached to my life and position to demand anything of you. Pelesa, occasionally. You… no. So would you perhaps humor me by sharing exactly what you are, if you're not in fact a Collector hybrid? And then perhaps take your leave so that you can do what you came here to do and I can go back to running my station?"

Despite her curiosity about this whole 'motorboating' thing, Luciana was willing to concede that Aria was right: they both had more important things to do at the present. And besides, she could always ask Luna about it once they were in private. Perhaps even request a demonstration before the blonde got too wrapped up in Epipsychidion. Straightening up, she considered the first half of Aria's request as she smoothed her hands down the front of her flowing gown before deciding to indulge her curiosity. "Seeing as how we'll be discussing the Collectors before I leave Omega, I see no problem with sharing a bit of information now. The Collectors and my particular strain of Sylléktries would be… siblings, I suppose? We're both descended from the same forefathers: the protheans. The species, not the empire."

Aria's brow furrowed in thought for a few seconds, and then she shook her head ruefully. "I'm sure there's a positively fascinating story behind how your mother managed to fuck a prothean, but I'm equally sure that I don't have time for it right now. Maybe we'll revisit that after the conversation we're evidently going to have about the Collectors. If there's nothing else, I'll release Lovegood into your protection and let her show you to where her and Potter are staying. I'm reasonably sure that you can keep her from getting killed between now and when you leave the station. Reasonably because… well, I've met her."

"I'm sure that Epipsychidion will take excellent care of the woman that she's hoping will be the aithntar of her firstborn daughter." Raising her left arm, Luciana activated her omni-tool and called up the highly edited data file that she'd prepared, transmitting it to Aria. "The Illusive Man is dispatching a pair of operatives to try and interfere with-"

Luna abruptly hopped to her feet, waving her hands back and forth to get Luciana's attention. "Wait a minute. Are you saying that you want me to shag the walking glow stick and make baby asari with her?" Furrowing her brow, Luciana held up a finger and then accessed the extranet via her omni-tool. After looking up exactly what a 'glow stick' was, she looked over at Epipsychidion and then shrugged. It was a… crude but not entirely inaccurate way to describe the Sylléktria's appearance. "Yes! Yes yes yes! Woo! We need to tell Harry. Immediately. And then I'll make jokes about our first threesome being out of this world. Get it? Because you're an asari?"

Before Epipsychidion could gather her wits and reply, Luna lunged forward and wrapped her arms around the taller woman's waist. Then she twisted her hips slightly and the pair… disappeared? Luciana's jaw dropped as she took a step forward, reaching out and waving her hand through the space that Epipsychidion and Luna had just been occupying. "Yeah, she does that." Aria picked up a nearby glass and pitched it through the empty space, letting it shatter against the floor at Pelesa's feet. "Didn't know she could bring anything with her, though. It actually makes her even more terrifying than before, now that I think about it. Because if she can pop more than just herself, she could pop a bomb somewhere. Or a krogan high on red sand, which is even more destructive and probably easier to get your hands on around here. Shit. I should probably stop threatening to shoot her and her boytoy, huh?"

"If the Sylléktrion justicar order still exists a month from now, it may do so without the asari who has been its head for the past three centuries. That is how fascinated Epipsychidion is by this young woman that you've discovered. So… yes, you should probably stop threatening Luna if you value your continued existence. 'Popping' ability notwithstanding." Luciana allowed Aria a few seconds to process that before pressing onward. "As I was saying, we took steps to ensure that both The Illusive Man and the Shadow Broker would be aware that we had designs on your guests. The Shadow Broker's team, you can do with as you see fit. Kill them, capture and sell them, it matters not to me. As for the Cerberus contingent… the file I sent you contains their information. One of them is mine; accord her the same hospitality that you've shown Luna. The other is of no consequence."

The curling purple line that ran along Aria's right brow inched upward at Luciana's request. "I see. And just what would your justicar say if she heard you endorsing slavery? Or cold-blooded murder?"

Luciana let out a faint snort at that; had Aria looked in a mirror lately? Was she actually foolish enough to think that her own behavior was acceptable in the eyes of a justicar? To say nothing of… likely a good ninety-five percent of the denizens of the wretched hive of scum and villainy that she ruled over? "Firstly, Omega exists outside the remit of either currently extant justicar order. Otherwise, our meeting would have unfolded in a completely different way. Secondly and most importantly… do you really think anyone who works for either of those organizations would be considered innocent in the eyes of the Code? The only reason I'm not telling you to kill or sell all of them is because I have plans of my own for Miss Lawson that-"

Before she could finish her sentence, there was a faint pop from behind Luciana. Then a pair of arms wrapped around her waist from behind and the world went black around her as she felt herself being squeezed through a tiny tube.

* * *

Aria stared at the space previously occupied by Luciana for several seconds before tilting her head back and sighing loudly. And just when she was started to get invested in that monologue. Now she'd never get closure. Well, at least until Luciana enacted whatever she had planned for her chosen Cerberus peon and Aria got to witness it all unfold. Still. That meant waiting and despite centuries under her belt, Aria was a terribly impatient person sometimes.

Speaking of being terribly impatient, though… her eyes drifted over to the massive asari who had accompanied Pelesa on guard duty. "Just out of curiosity, how do you feel about voyeurism? Because I figure that as long as Pelesa's up here… well, this couch isn't going to ruin itself."

* * *

The bright flash of light that accompanied the pop of Luna's apparition made Harry look up from what he was doing in the kitchen, and then he raised an eyebrow as the sight of what was easily the oddest-looking asari he'd laid eyes on to date. Presumably a Sylléktria based on the predominately purple outfit, with elongated crests that pulsed with light. As he watched, they transitioned from bright blue-white flashes to a chaotic, almost distressed-looking cavalcade of colors and then the asari began vomiting noisily onto the floor of the apartment. Luna offered Harry a sheepish look, vanished the existing mess, and then disapparated as the new arrival continued to void her stomach noisily. "Got apparated without warning, huh?"

The largely rhetorical question went unanswered for several minutes as the asari continued to revisit what appeared to be everything she'd eaten in the last decade. Eventually, the disgusting display came to an end with a few dry heaves, her crest settled back down into rhythmic blue-white pulses of light, and then she sucked in a shuddering breath before looking up at him with wide eyes. "That was the worst thing this one has experienced in the last seven hundred and forty-two years. What… was that?"

Harry shook his head as he set down the knife he'd been working with, circling around the kitchen island and making his way over to the asari. Drawing his wand, he made quick work of the rest of the mess she'd created on the floor, hit her boots with a low grade cleaning charm just to be on the safe side, and then finished up with a breath freshening charm. "Congratulations, I think you're the first alien to ever be side-along apparated. But if you're asking what it was in a less literal sense, you're in luck because a friend of mine studied apparition extensively and finally managed to put a bit of science to our magic. While we still don't understand exactly what magic is beyond a form of energy that we can naturally manipulate… basically, apparition is when we use it to perform spacial folding and transport ourselves instantaneously from one point to another. And I'm hoping you know what spacial folding is and that explanation makes sense to you, because Hermione lost me about five seconds after that when she started using words with far too many syllables. I do remember hearing the phrase 'Einstein-Rosen bridge' several times, though, if that helps you any?"

"This one is afraid that she hasn't put any serious study into the sciences in over half a millennia, but spacial folding was covered during the basic physics classes she took back in her twenties. If she recalls correctly, it's currently believed to be impossible given the limits of our science and technology, even on Óasi. The fact that you can do it naturally is…" Trailing off, the asari shook her head in disbelief as she brushed past Harry and stumbled over to throw herself down bonelessly on the couch. After taking a few more breaths to center herself, she looked up at Harry uncertainly. "Exactly how powerful are the two of you?"

There was a muted pop as Luna reappeared, followed by noisy retching as the second asari to ever be apparated proved no better suited for it than the first. Even as Luna rubbed the newcomer's back and vanished the vomit as fast it appeared, she stared intently into the eyes of the still nameless asari on the couch. "Terrifyingly powerful, I'm sure, even compared to people who can control dark energy and mass effect fields. Biotics has nothing even remotely similar to transfiguration or conjuration, as Alyona found out today, and even most of our battle magic is beyond anything a biotic can do. Your powers are… remarkably limited compared to ours, to be honest. Neat, with a very pretty glow, but very limited." Bringing her free hand up, Luna tapped a finger against her temple. "For instance, I just used eye contact to channel my magic and scan your surface thoughts, which was how I knew that you asked the question even though I wasn't here. With my wand, a bit more power, and some concentration? I could use legilimency to dig around in your memories and find specific things that I wanted to see."

"Given that asari can share information through even linking, this one finds your 'legilimency' to be… disquieting from a security standpoint, but not truly terrifying."

"…that makes sense, yeah. Hmm. Well, maybe once Luciana is done vomiting, I can conjure something and then transfigure it. See how you feel about me then." Luna gave the woman beside her one last pat on the back as the asari entered the dry heaving stage, vanishing the last of the mess on the floor before making her way over to sit next to… Harry paused. Luciana. As in Matriarch Luciana? Leader of the Sylléktries? That was who'd just finished puking on his floor? Lovely. What a wonderful first impression they were making on the people whose help they needed. "By the way, how do you feel about… no, Pipsy sounds like a house elf. Maybe Epee? It's a type of human sword, which feels like an appropriate name for someone like you. I'm usually fine with full names, but I just feel like focusing enough to scream 'Epipsychidion' in bed is going to take me out of the fun."

…and that certainly wasn't going to help matters any. Groaning, Harry buried his face in his hands. "Luna…"

If not for the fact that they'd made eye contact after she dumped off Epipsychidion - and that was quite the mouthful, he had to agree - Harry would have almost thought that Luna was unaware of his presence up until that point. "What? It's a very real concern, considering she's the one they want me to shag and have babies with." Well that changed… not much, really, since he still wasn't entirely sold on the idea of the Sylléktries yet, no matter how well they suited his current needs. Not to mention that it was just plain crass to talk about that sort of thing in front of others. Which had never really stopped Luna, Harry was forced to admit, but… there was no time like the present to pick up a new good habit? "Oh! Introductions. Harry, this is Epipsychidion. She's the soon to be ex-Justicar Mistress of Óasi." Leaning forward, she lowered her voice to a stage whisper. "She wants to shag me so bad that she's quitting her job. That's incredibly flattering, isn't it?" Even as a darker blue blush stole across Epipsychidion's bright blue cheeks, Luna raised her voice and continued on as if she hadn't just offered that little tidbit. "And the lovely busty asari in the dress that was probably meant for someone two or three cup sizes smaller is Luciana. I don't know if she's here to shag you, but I wouldn't mind having her in our bed too. She has really pretty eyes. And a bunch of them."

As Luciana straightened up and tried to regain her composure, allowing him to finally get a good look at her, Harry found himself amending his earlier statement. Now this… this was the oddest-looking asari he'd ever seen.

Although Harry had to concede, Luna was telling the truth. Luciana's eyes were rather pretty…


	11. Chapter 11

Joe's Note: It's been a while, hasn't it? I could offer all manner of excuses related to what's gone on in my real life, but that would ring hollow the moment you look at the rest of my account and how active other stories have been. The truth of it is… I didn't forget about this story or anything, my muse just had no interest in working on it. I always promised myself that I wouldn't produce utter crap just for the sake of being able to said I updated, so I spent some time away from _Ex Astris Gloria_ working on other stories. Then my muse decided to rouse itself and… well, here we are. By the way, in addition to getting first looks at chapters? My patrons have near-exclusive access to art of the characters from this, and my back-and-forth with them has influenced how some of the characters have evolved. Just putting that out there.  
Dedications &amp; Thanks: Nicolas, Alexander, Howard, MJ, Daniel, Christopher, mpop, Riley, bloodylord, Luke, Zachary, Marc, Ziryo, Elliot, Crusifikz70, Timothy, Leigh, Jason, Chris, George, Koby, Ken, Thyatira, William, Invernos, Paul, Pat, Warren, Mitch, and Jess for sponsoring me on , and making it easier for me to spend more of my time writing. Additional thanks go to the incomparable LogicalPremise for his amazing set of references covering many untouched facets of the _Mass Effect_ universe, as well as listening to me ramble about ideas for the future of this story.

* * *

"If I had known I would be cooking for asari tonight, I would have… I have no idea. What do you eat?"

"Food." The corner of Luciana's mouth quirked upward as she used her fork to spear through a potato, a carrot, and what the elcor in the market had assured Harry was genuine Terran beef despite its slightly off color. Stuffing the entire thing into her mouth with far less decorum than Harry would have expected from someone in her position, the asari chewed and swallowed before elaborating. "Which is to say that we're obligate omnivores, same as humans. While Thessian asari are closer to what you would call pescatarians, those of us from Óasi are considerably more adventurous. That said, we do prefer fattier meats and higher calorie dishes altogether; our bodies burn through fuel very quickly because of our biotics."

Harry nodded as he filed that information away, before looking over at where Epipsychidion was very carefully picking her way around the meat in favor of focusing on the starch and vegetables. "Although evidently your kind has preferences, just like everyone else."

Looking up from her dinner, Epipsychidion looked sheepish. "Hanar are piscivores and so while this one is capable of eating anything, she is more comfortable being a pescatarian. This one is capable of digesting meats, but it is significantly more difficult and less efficient for her body."

"I wonder…" Leaning forward, Luna drew her wand from its customary place behind her ear and stared at Epipsychidion's plate. "Any food we conjure is nutritionally null. But we can transfigure food. I wonder… if I transfigured the beef into some kind fish, would the change go deep enough to satisfy Epee's body?"

That… Harry had no clue about. During the search for the horcruxes, they'd transfigured bland but nutritious things into more interesting foods just for a bit of variety, but their underlying nature had ensured the food had actually satisfied them. They'd never tried turning bread into a banana for more potassium, or a potato into a cupcake for a quick boost of sugary energy. "I don't know. Considering she can process meat, it wouldn't really hurt her if it didn't… but that one's up to Epee. It's her stomach."

Epipsychidion looked from Harry to Luna and back several times before turning to Luciana in askance, the older asari shrugging in response. "This one has not gotten to be who and where she is by avoiding risks. Very well. You may attempt to 'transfigure' this one's dinner."

"Oh! I was too busy asking you about yourself to give you that demonstration before dinner, wasn't I? Transfiguration is the magical art of turning one thing into another. In this case - assuming I do it right - I'm going to completely convert the bits of beef into a piece of an Earth fish called cod. Which should allow your body to digest it easier." Waving her wand, Luna separated out the pieces of meat on Epipsychidion's plate, drawing them together before transfiguring them into… evidently Luna was feeling fancy, Harry mused, because she'd skipped straight past 'cod fillet' and gone for one of the grilled and seasoned cod fillets that he'd begun making after their American vacation. While he was curious as to how good it'd taste compared to the real thing, he would leave Epipsychidion to enjoy her- "It's a grilled cod fillet seasoned with a Cajun spice mix and lemon-pepper, and basted with a lemon butter sauce. I have no idea what any of that means but I remember what it looks like and what it tastes like from when Harry's made it, so… bon appétit!"

Epipsychidion prodded the fillet uncertainly with her fork several times before deciding to take a chance on it, breaking off a piece and sticking it into her mouth. Unlike humans, Harry wasn't just treated to wide eyes: the asari's crests pulsed with bursts of red and pink light. "This is… amazing. And you said that Harry could prepare this?" Luna nodded, giggling softly as Epipsychidion promptly shoveled several more forkfuls into her mouth. "If this one was not interested you for your own virtues, she would ponder courting you simply to be in a house where food like this is served."

Harry couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at that. "Why not 'court' the cook himself? Or is this where you two finally admit that Luciana is here for that reason?"

Shaking her head, Luciana offered a bemused little smile at that. "Tempting as the offer might be, my particular strain of Sylléktries are only allowed one daughter to prevent us from overpopulating the small and incredibly secretive enclave that we all occupy together. Although if you really are that interested in having a daughter with four golden eyes someday, my daughter is midway through her fourth century. The perfect time to settle down and start a family."

"Considering how secretive 'your strain' is, would that really be a good idea?" Finished with his dinner, Harry leaned back in his seat and gestured over to the garish golden cloak that was thrown over the back of his couch. "After poking through Calia's mind, Luna gave me a primer on Sylléktries. You're going to want us so that you can produce magical children to help fight the Reapers when they come. But you hide yourself away from the rest of the Sylléktries; if Aria's to be believed, this trip is the first time her Pelesa has ever seen your face. So for some reason, I'm thinking that you wouldn't want a four-eyed Dahlia Potter out on the front lines fighting with the other troops."

"When the Reapers come, the secrecy around my strain's origins will be irrelevant."

"And between then and now?"

"You raise a valid point. It was an idle comment at any rate; Adelia is current fascinated with one of the two rachni queens living on Óasi." Harry still hadn't managed to figure out what rachni were but resolved to do so as soon as he could; if Luciana was willing to pass up a chance to throw her own daughter at Harry in favor of her mating with one, they were bound to be fascinating. Then Harry discovered that not only was Luciana capable of emulating two-eyed facial expressions, but her arching a brow the way he did was actually kinda cute. "Although I'm curious… Dahlia Potter?"

Harry offered a shrug in return before smiling faintly. "All of the women on my mother's side of my family are named after flowers for something like… five generations back. If I had a daughter, I could see myself continuing that tradition." Leaning toward Luna, he lowered his voice slightly. "According to that journal we found deep in my Gringott's vault, Dahlia is what my mum would have called me if I'd been born a girl."

"So I can I call you that next time we use that one potion?"

"…maybe." Doing his best to fight down a blush at the distinctly curious looks on the two asari's faces - evidently they had better hearing than he'd suspected - Harry straightened back up and turned his attention back to Luciana. "So, let's put all our cards on the table here. I know what you want from us. I know why. I know it would be a really easy way to out of our current predicament while helping you out too. And hey, the idea of being the father of a completely new, alien society of magic users… it really appeals to what little ego I do have. But even if I am willing to get over the cultural taboo on polyamory that I grew up with and go along with this? I'm not going to give up my daughter nor am I going to cut her mother out of my life. Which means whoever I end up fathering a child with, I need to at least like her. I won't require love. But we at least need to enjoy each other's company. Which also goes for you." His gaze drifted to the left, catching Epipsychidion with a forkful of food in her mouth. "If it turns out that we can't stand living together, you don't get to do your thing with Luna."

"That's not fair!"

Narrowing his eyes, Harry glanced over at Luna. "Would you pick her over me if you had to?" Luna's eyes widened and she peered over at Epipsychidion for a few seconds before meeting Harry's gaze once more and shaking her head. "I'm not saying no asari at all ever. I'm saying that if we're going to be operating as a family, everyone has to like everyone. You'll have veto power over anyone I meet as well." If Epipsychidion - or whoever Luna settled down with - and his asari didn't get along… they'd cross that bridge when they got to it. "At least for now. I'm not stupid; I know they're not going to stop at one child, or even one mother. But… I want something resembling a real family in my future. I don't think that's too much to ask for."

Luna nodded as she leaned in to take his face between her hands, pressing a flurry of kisses against his forehead, nose, and lips. "Of course not. As much as I want this and as fun as it sounds, I would never ask you to share a house with… space babe Draco… much less your life. Or worse, Pansy." They both shuddered at that; time had done little to improve the Slytherin's looks, temperament, or personality. After thinking for a few seconds, Luna gently turned his head toward Epipsychidion. "Although you have to admit, seeing faces like that each time you serve her a meal would do wonders for your ego."

True, true. Reaching up, Harry gently pulled Luna's hands away from his face and interlaced their fingers. "I'm not saying you can't stay for now, either, Epee. Well, if you two do manage to talk me into this, that is. I'm just asking that if it turns out that you don't like me, or I don't like you, or you and Luna end up not getting along as well outside the bedroom as in it? Accept that it wasn't meant to be and move on."

"This one finds that to be an acceptable idea." Epipsychidion glanced down at her plate before offering Harry a sheepish look. "If you don't mind, though, this one is here for protection rather than negotiation, and she would prefer to focus on the delicious meal in front of her for the time being."

Harry chuckled and waved dismissively before looking at Luciana, the matriach placing her fork on her thoroughly cleaned plate and dabbing at the corner of her mouth with a napkin. "Very well. Theoretically speaking, of course, since we haven't 'talked you into this' yet… what would you want from us in exchange from your services?"

"Decent armor for me, decent armor for Luna, and… do you use the same ship classes as Thessian asari?" Harry waited for Luciana to nod her assent, confusion plain on her face, before grinning wolfishly. "I want a storm cruiser."

As Epipsychidion began choking on her dinner, Luciana's jaw dropped. "Surely you can't be serious."

Bypassing the homophone joke that would likely be ruined by their translators, Harry's grin widened. "Perfectly so. You see, the first thing that Epipsychidion is going to learn from melding with Luna is that I'm prone to doing incredibly stupid things. Heroic things, mind you, but stupid ones. I'm going to need a ship that can stand up to my stupidity, and that means a storm cruiser. From what I've seen on the extranet, their crews seem like my kind of people, too. Gryffindors, through and through."

Finally getting over her shock, Luciana leaned back in her own chair and eyed him calculatingly. "Thanks to our technology, we build things smaller and more efficient than our sisters on the homeworld… but you're asking me to put four hundred and fifty meters of battering ram disguised as a ship - and a crew of two hundred and seventy-five - at your disposal? Are you… what even makes you think that we have a storm cruiser just lying around that I can hand you?"

"You're looking at this the entirely wrong way. Liselle told me that it's possible for outsiders to become Sylléktries. You're not losing a ship, you're simply assigning it to detached duty so that your two newest citizens can see the galaxy for a bit. Then it will come right back to rejoin your fleet." Luciana looked somewhat mollified by that, and Harry decided to dangle one of his remaining carrots in front of her. "Besides, I'm going to need a decent-sized ship if I'm going to bring other witches and wizards back to you."

"Others?"

"My people were backwards and foolish and self-absorbed, but they were resilient. I can't believe that they've died out in the last two centuries or so. And while they're no asari, they're longer lived than baseline humans and have long memories to match." Reaching up, Harry brushed his hair back to reveal the scar that Voldemort had given him so many years ago. "As soon as I start traveling the galaxy, having a bit of fun, maybe stirring up a bit of trouble? My people will recognize this scar. I won't have to hunt down others of my kind, they'll flock to me." Hopefully. It was a bit of rare egotism on his part but… he had been a pretty big deal in the wizarding world before his 'death', if he did say so himself.

Luciana regarded Harry thoughtfully for almost a minute before finally replying. "There's a lot of uncertainty in that. Are your people still extant? Will they want anything to do with you? Will they want anything to do with us? And given your previous demands… unless you take a fancy to an existing storm cruiser's captain, we'll need to build and crew one from scratch for you." What? Why? "It's a warship, not a pleasure yacht. Even you falling for a captain wouldn't solve problems; their quarters could house you and her but not Luna and Epipsychidion. To say nothing of any children you have."

Rising to his feet, Harry began clearing the table even as Epipsychidion finished the last of her dinner. "Well, that's the price I'm asking for contributing some truly unique children to your people. At least two but considering that I'd been picturing myself raising three or four someday, I could see myself fathering more even if Luna decided not to. So the question then becomes… do you still want to sell us on becoming Sylléktries?"

Before Luciana could respond, her omni-tool burst to life in a flurry of chirps and glowing windows. Glancing down at it, she frowned faintly. "It's one of my guards. Just out of curiosity, how do you feel about humanocentric terrorists and shadowy information brokers who have their fingers in everything from assassination to slavery?"

"…not really a fan of either, to be honest. Why?"

"Oh, Cerberus and the Shadow Broker both sent delegations to try and recruit you. Originally I was going to let Aria deal with them as she saw fit, but it appears that events have conspired to force me and mine to take a more active role." Luciana tapped at her omni-tool for a few seconds before deactivating it and folding her hands in front of her. "But enough about such things. Dessert?"

* * *

Stepping off the shuttle, Macaria winced as something crunched beneath the heel of her thankfully thick-soled boot. Omega. If not for the Broker's deep pockets and odd whims, she could honestly say that she would have gone her entire life without visiting the cesspool. Looking around, she noted the positions of Aria's security forces relative to the human shuttle that was landing a few berths down before gesturing for her companions to follow. A pair of fresh operatives on the tail end of maidenhood, they were hardly Macaria's first choice for companions on an operation but she'd picked them while still under the assumption that she would be running a honeypot. Humans did seem to like the maidens more, after all. Then she'd realized that her orders were simple: keep the Cerberus operatives from interfering in Sylléktrion business. Killing them accomplished that nicely and kept her from being drawn into a drawn-out, three-way seduction competition. "Remember the plan?"

"I ignore everything else going on and force my way past up onto their shuttle. Clean house if there's anyone left, and then start preflight checks." Kasha raised her arm to display an omni-tool already glowing with the controls for the program she'd need to clear any lockouts on the shuttle's control. "And while I'm doing that…"

Deciding they were close enough, Lysa unholstered and expanded her pistol before grinning viciously. "I pick off the tanned one who can't decide on a name. And then lay down additional fire if you haven't pierced Lawson's barriers yet."

Macaria nodded. "I'll take her biotic highness. We take the ship, we get out of here before Aria pitches a fit that we're fighting our battles on her station." Drawing her shotgun, she took a deep breath before generating a warp field in her right hand and striding purposefully toward the shuttle's descending ramp. "Let's do this."

Closing into her shotgun's most effective range, Macaria drew her hand back to hurl her warp at her distinctive, white and black-clad target now standing at the foot of the ramp staring at her… and then a weapon roared off to her left and the world went green.

* * *

Already in the act of drawing her Tempest, Miranda Lawson's eyes went wide as the shotgun-wielding asari and her two companions were blasted with a cone of green light and simply… ceased to exist. It took even her enhanced brain a few seconds to process the turn of events and then she followed the blast back to its source: a massive asari in purple and gold armor wielding an utterly alien weapon. While normally that was the sort of thing that deserved thanks, doing so on Omega was also admitting weakness. "I could have handled that."

The asari let out a low, rumbling chuckle before trading her larger gun for an equally alien pistol and firing one glowing green shot over Miranda's shoulder. A splash of something hot and wet against the back of her head made Miranda look back, and she winced as she watched Brooks's body - now missing most of its own head - collapse onto the ramp. "Definitely more fun than watching Pelesa and her runt go at it, especially since they weren't going to let me join in. Miranda Lawson."

"I have no idea who you're talking about, my name is-"

"Miranda Lawson." Holstering her pistol, the armored asari closed the distance between them before fisting her hand in Miranda's jumpsuit and lifting her clean off the ground. "My superior wants to speak with you. Therefore, you will be going to speak with her. Would you prefer to walk or be carried?"

Well, if her choices were fighting a Sylléktria with energy weapons and an unknown amount of backup when her own backup had gone and lost her head… or meeting with whoever this woman reported to? "I'll walk." The asari regarded her warily for a few more seconds before lowering her to the deck, and Miranda offered her most charming smile in response. "I must confess that I've wanted to say this to someone ever since I was a little girl… take me to your leader."


	12. Chapter 12

Joe's Note: Not gonna lie, some of my favorite reviews that popped up after last chapter were the guest Leonineus fanboys. Notably, the two who seemed intent on tying review count to story quality… and then provided six separate reviews to boost my number higher? So I guess that if that's how you're going to compare our stories, you're doing your part to make mine 'better'? No idea. Eh, I'm happy because I've got 54% the reviews of _Lightning among the Stars_ at only 42% the word count. I'd be satisfied with statistical parity, so being ahead of the curve is great. Moving on… this chapter will continue roughly where the last one left off, and we get to watch Harry and Luna find out that they're not the only ones who the Sylléktries are trying to make an offer they can't refuse. Enjoy!  
Dedications &amp; Thanks: Nicolas, Alexander, Howard, MJ, Daniel, Christopher, mpop, Riley, bloodylord, Luke, Zachary, Marc, Ziryo, Elliot, Crusifikz70, Timothy, Leigh, Jason, Chris, George, Koby, Ken, Thyatira, William, Invernos, Paul, Pat, Warren, Mitch, and Jess for sponsoring me on , and making it easier for me to spend more of my time writing. Additional thanks go to the incomparable LogicalPremise for his amazing set of references covering many untouched facets of the _Mass Effect_ universe, as well as listening to me ramble about ideas for the future of this story.

* * *

By the time that dessert had been consumed and a nightcap enjoyed, Harry was considerably better informed about what a future among Luciana's people would be like and accordingly far more comfortable with the idea of becoming a Sylléktria himself. The matriarch had been almost refreshingly straightforward compared to previous authority figures in his life: as much as Harry desired to maintain something vaguely resembling a nuclear family - even if it would involve four parents instead of the standard two - she was frank about the fact that there would be pressure on both him and Luna to join with other asari. Epipsychidion had been quick to assure them that nobody would attempt to join with them without their consent; evidently rape was a crime that disgusted both humans and asari equally. But at the same time, absolutely no effort would be made to keep their fellow Sylléktries from propositioning Harry, Luna, or both.

How they would handle that attention was Harry's singular biggest remaining concern about the entire affair. After receiving assurances from both Luciana and Luna that he'd be able to pick his own companion among the Sylléktries and form a real relationship with her, the idea of being with someone other than his fiancée - someday wife - had become significantly easier for Harry to stomach. While yes, there would be more than just the two of them, they would hardly be that 'deviant' swinging couple from Number Fourteen who had horrified Vernon and Petunia so. They would be two couples who were also one… grouple… that loved each other very much. Or at the very worst, three interlocking couples built around two asari who tolerated each other well enough. There was nothing weird or tawdry about that… right?

Others, though… especially others who would come and go from their bed and their lives once they had what they wanted? Harry really wasn't sure what to make of that. He knew what Luna would make of it: she'd be thrilled at the idea of getting to sample the charms of more 'space babes'. Conversely, he was pretty sure that he'd still see it as cheating even after he was well and truly comfortable with the idea of a four adult family. But even if he didn't? It wasn't the sort of simple, casual sex that he'd indulged in with a few fangirls after both of his divorces. These asari would be joining with him wholly for the purpose of getting pregnant, creating children that he would likely never meet. Never help raise. Never know. As someone who valued family as highly as he did? That didn't sit well.

Then Harry realized that he was inventing problems where none really existed. Neither he nor Luna would be forced to join with anyone and while Luna would obviously be intrigued by the offers, she was loyal. If he wasn't comfortable with it, she wouldn't do it. Otherwise, their bed would be full of Aria's underlings by now. And besides, for all he knew? With a little work, they'd be able to locate hundreds of thousands or maybe even millions of other witches and wizards scattered among the worlds of the Systems Alliance or the wildcat colonies, 'flooding the market' so to speak and thoroughly destroying their value to the Sylléktries. Which, Harry realized, was a powerful motivator for them to formally negotiate an offer and then agree to it: if the Sylléktries located other magicals, his and Luna's value would indeed plummet, making it harder to get what they needed much less wanted from the asari. "So… I know your people normally name storm cruisers after famous priestesses, but would you be willing to make an exception for us? I was thinking the _Marauder_."

"You're quite fixated on the idea of owning a storm cruiser, aren't you? I suppose it would be an effective way to protect our investment. Expensive, but effective." Activating her omni-tool, Luciana called up an image of a bustling shipyard situated in the middle of an asteroid belt and then zoomed in on the incomplete forms of what were clearly a pair of asari cruisers. "We actually do have a few cruisers under construction at the moment, including a pair of storm cruisers. They were destined for the First Fleet; one as a replacement for an aging ship and the other to expand the fleet. I suppose the latter could be retasked to become your… _Marauder_. I must admit, though, I'm surprised that you're asking for one of our ships instead of perhaps the money to-"

"Would the Asari Republics sell us a storm cruiser?"

"Not a chance."

"Well there you go." Far more clumsily than the asari, Harry activated his omni-tool and called up a video he'd found on the extranet, watching intently as a storm cruiser took several hits from a krogan analog before brutally ramming its opponent out of the way, unleashing a punishing barrage of missiles into the listing ship before continuing onward. "Overly heavy shielding, redundant Silaris armor, shock absorbing struts between the outer and inner hulls… it's practically indestructible and that's before I get a chance to try layering the hull with Unbreakable Charms and the like. From the moment I discovered them, I knew that if I was going to own a ship or even just live aboard one, it would have to be a storm cruiser. Forget any sort of civilian ship; I'd probably get the poor thing blown out from under me in less than a month. Military ships… the humans don't make anything quite like your storm cruisers; salarian corvettes and turian assault cruisers are close, but I can't even imagine how much work it would take to turn one of those into something humans could live comfortably in. Assuming you could even get me one; Merlin knows it'd have to be through you because there's no way I could acquire one in a remotely legitimate way. The less said about the batarians the better, and the volus and hanar are the worst of both worlds: they don't make a comparable ship and they'd be nightmares to convert for human use."

Nodding along as he spoke, Luciana waited for a few seconds to ensure he was done before responding. "I suppose I'm mostly surprised that you're not asking for a battle or torpedo cruiser if you're dead set on taking one of our ships as your own. Despite your uncanny resemblance to asari, your kind tends to have a very turian mindset when it comes to shipbuilding: the more weapons a ship has, the more you like it."

Harry shook his head in amusement, sipping from the cup of tea that he'd been nursing since they left the dining table as he collected his thoughts. "I won't deny that a big stick has an occasional appeal, but it's not for me. Most of my friends would tell you that I have a savior complex, and they're probably right. I hate seeing innocent people suffer; I'll risk my own safety to protect someone else. But for better or worse, that's who I am and so I'm going to need a ship that will stand up to what I'll ask of it. Jumping in between pirates and their victims, that sort of thing. The only thing that can survive more abuse than a storm cruiser is a dreadnaught, and I know you're not going to give me one of those."

A peal of laughter escaped Luciana at that, the asari shaking her head in amusement. "Not even if you agreed to personally join with every last member of its crew. Which is roughly a thousand asari, if you're curious." Fingers dancing over the controls of her omni-tool, Luciana ended with a flicking motion that sent the image of the storm cruiser under construction jumping to Harry's omni-tool. "That's another reason I'm surprised you're not asking for money to buy your own ship, hardiness of our storm cruisers aside. A storm cruiser has a crew of two hundred and seventy-five, meaning-"

"Meaning that even if literally every asari aboard finds me or Luna interesting enough to try and seduce, it's far less asari than I'd have to deal with on Óasi or one of your other worlds. The cruiser creates a bottleneck for that particular problem." Harry grinned as Luciana's jaw dropped, reaching up to tap his right index finger against his temple. "I'm no Luna or Hermione, but I'm not an idiot either. Until the novelty wears off, we find other magicals, or both? I'm going to do my best to minimize my exposure to my fellow Sylléktries for the sake of my sanity. And my virtue."

Having remained fairly quiet since they relocated to the living room, Epipsychidion's return to the conversation made Harry jerk in surprise. "This one is wondering why you've repeatedly implied that you're willing to become a Sylléktrion citizen if you're so uncomfortable with how our society operates?"

Harry offered a faint shrug in reply, taking several sips from his cup as he gathered his thoughts. "I'm not passing judgement on you lot, Epee, I'm just saying that certain aspects of your culture aren't for me. Not right now, possibly not ever, although I'm willing to admit that my opinion could change once I get settled in. That said? We'll save my unabridged history for another day, but to make a long story short? I never really felt at home on Earth, either in the wizarding world or among muggles… err, non-magical humans. Maybe they've changed. Maybe we'd be a better fit now. I'm not sure I'm willing to risk it. That's why I'm taking the long view here, planning citizenship instead of just walking away with very specific compensation. I'm going to spend a few years, maybe even a decade or two exploring the galaxy… and then I'll want to go home. I'll need somewhere to call home. After everything I've been through, I'm willing to try something new. Why not Óasi?"

"Why not Óasi indeed? Very well. This sort of thing usually takes considerably longer, but since you seem very set on what you're looking for out of this arrangement and I knew what I was going to ask for in return before my ship even docked with Omega? Let's make this official." Luciana pulled up another file on her omni-tool and repeated her flicking motion, sending a copy over to Harry for his perusal. "To sum up the mountain of legalese you're now staring at? The Sylléktrion Collective will complete, provision, and crew the storm cruiser _Marauder_ and place it on indefinite 'detached duty' from the First Fleet under your informal control in exchange for a minimum of four children. One of the children must be Luna's daughter by Epipsychidion, while another must be your daughter by the Sylléktria of your choice. Two additional children must be conceived by either you, Luna, or a combination thereof with the asari of your choice; I'll assume that to be Epipsychidion and your eventual bondmate, but I'll hardly be upset if you take a liking to other asari. Additionally…" Luciana paused and drew herself up, obviously steeling herself for an argument. "If you can't locate others of your kind, you must have an additional daughter by one of the Mánteis."

Glancing over at where Luna looked rather comfy on Epipsychidion's lap, Harry mouthed the word 'Mánteis' and received a shrug in return. Good, so he hadn't missed something important at some point… or if he had, so had Luna. Hopefully the former, otherwise they were both really slipping. "If you want Harry to have a daughter by a… whatever a Mánteis is, you'd better hope that he falls for one and picks her as his bondmate. Because you're not going to get him to agree otherwise."

"Considering he hopes to live aboard a ship and explore the galaxy, it would be… incredibly unwise for him to take a Mánteis as a bondmate." Raising her free hand, Luciana tapped at a spot just to the right of her rightmost eye. "The Mánteis are my people: Sylléktrion asari descended from protheans. We rarely leave our enclave on Óasi and so-"

Colors danced past Harry's face as he buried his face in his hands, sighing deeply. "I would either be tied to the planet or forced to abandon my bondmate and daughter to use the very ship that I'd be bonding and having a daughter to pay for. If I ever introduce you to traditional wizarding garb, I'll make sure it's green and silver; you're Slytherin to the core, Luciana." Not that he couldn't understand where she was coming from, because he could. They were the leaders of a people, and magic was something new and fascinating to them. Of course they would want to incorporate it into their ruling class, study it, spread it amongst themselves. But while he understood her reasoning, that didn't make the position he was being put in any less shitty. He rolled the idea around in his head for several minutes, examining it from every possible angle. He liked these people and their goals, he really did. The obsessing with shagging and breeding was a bit annoying, but they seemed like good people other than that. He wanted to work with them, but he wasn't going to be an absentee father. And then suddenly he remembered their other, original benefactor. "Aria." Looking up, he met Luciana's gaze before jerking his head upward and to the left in the vague direction of Afterlife and Aria's throne. "If this came to pass, I would want an agreement like Aria's."

All four of Luciana's eyes went wide at that. "Absolutely not. Every daughter of a Mántis is a Mántis; I thought we'd addressed this back when you were making jokes about your theoretical daughter Dahlia?"

"Then you'd better pray to Merlin that we can find you another wizard and that you can convince him to have a daughter with a Mántis. Or a witch, obviously. Because an arrangement like Aria's is the only way I'll agree." Harry shrugged before leaning back into the couch and eyeing Luciana speculatively. "We're going to need some time to settle in. Meet a nice Sylléktria in my case. Have our daughters. There's no way this extra daughter of yours will be born for… say three years at a minimum. Use that time to come up with a… I don't know, some sort of holographic disguise. You can turn Calia invisible, why can't you Mánteis make yourselves look like normal asari? Or have the Mánteis come out to your people; I'd agree to keep… Dahlia… away from outsiders if she could live normally among the Sylléktries. Or just sit back and pray that it never comes to pass; that you find another magical willing to live on Óasi and father a daughter with a Mántis. The choice is yours. But that's my counteroffer: I'll give you the magical Mántis that you so desperately want, but only if I can raise her. Modify that clause to include what I'm asking for or strip it out of the agreement entirely, the choice is yours."

Luciana narrowed her eyes, staring at Harry intently for almost a minute before eventually nodding in concession, looking away and draining what remained of her glass of brandy in one long pull. "You drive a hard bargain, Harry Potter… but very well. I will need to confer with my fellow matriarchs, but I will find a way to alter things to your liking. I will forward a new copy of the agreement to you as soon as it's ready. In the mean time, I'll notify the shipyards to pause construction on the Marauder after the inner hull is completed; you can meet with the shipwrights to lay out what you'd like them to do with your ship. Try to avoid doing anything too extravagant; it will remain an active warship long after you've grown bored with it."

A bit surprised at how easily she'd conceded, Harry nodded dumbly. He'd grown up in a cupboard, then shared a room with four other boys when he wasn't living in the smallest bedroom at Number Four Privet Drive. Even after spending a good amount of time living at Number Twelve, extravagance wasn't exactly Harry's style. "That shouldn't be hard. We'll just need to rearrange things so there's a bedroom big enough for four to move around in comfortably. And some sort of space for the kids, of course." Actually, they would only really need a second cabin the size of the captain's; Expansion Charms could take over from there to provide a suitable living space. And if magic and spaceships didn't mix directly, he'd still be okay as long as the room was big enough to pitch a tent in. "But okay. You need to talk to the others, then you'll get back to us with something to sign. Or however contracts work here in the future. Where does that leave us for the time being?"

"Wherever you'd like to be… as long as it doesn't get you killed, that is. That would be problematic for obvious reasons." Setting her empty glass down on the coffee table, Luciana rose to her feet. "As for me? I'll be taking my leave of you for the time being. This trip was supposed to be both business and pleasure for me, and I could do with a bit of relaxation and fun right about now. Enjoy the remainder of your evening, and Epipsychidion…" As she walked toward the door, Luciana raised a glowing hand and made a pulling motion, summoning her cloak and slipping it on. Pausing at the doorway, she glanced back over her shoulder and offered a faint smirk. "Don't do anything that I wouldn't do." Then the door open and she was gone.

The remaining trio sat in silence for several moments, each lost in their own thoughts, and then Luna giggled softly. Looking up at her, Harry raised an eyebrow and the blonde nodded in the direction of the door. "I used passive legilimency on her a few times over the course of the night. She's lying about the one daughter per Mántis thing, by the way; she's just not that interested in you. She's off to seduce someone named Miranda and try to have her daughter. And judging by what was floating through her mind…" Reaching up, she brushed her fingers over Epipsychidion's cheek gently. "There aren't too many things that Epee isn't allowed to do tonight."

Epipsychidion's eyes went wide as she looked from Luna to Harry and back several times. "Oh dear. All flirtation and innuendo aside, would you perhaps be interested in getting to know this one better first? While this seemed easy in theory, this one is finding that in practice, she is very aware that she hasn't been intimate with someone in nearly five centuries. This is all far, far more daunting than this one anticipated…"

"Bloody hell. Five hundred years?" Harry let out a low whistle before shaking his head incredulously. "And here I used to make fun of Neville for how long he'd been stuck in a dry streak…" Not that he was opposed to taking things slow, far from it. But… damn.


	13. Chapter 13

Joe's Note: Originally, this was going to be part of Chapter 12's main scene; in other words, Miranda would be routed to Harry and Luna's apartment, allowing Harry to observe how the Sylléktries interacted with a potential recruit who wasn't him or Luna. After trying several iterations of the scene, I threw it all out and started from scratch, opting to keep Harry and Miranda's plot lines separate for the time being. Then I intended to wrap up Harry's story in time to include Miranda in Chapter 12, but that failed too because… well, there's a lot to talk about in Harry's apartment. So I took the scene I'd written, pushed it off to the start of a new chapter, and here we are. Enjoy.  
Dedications &amp; Thanks: Nicolas, Alexander, Howard, MJ, Daniel, Christopher, mpop, Riley, bloodylord, Luke, Zachary, Marc, Ziryo, Elliot, Crusifikz70, Timothy, Leigh, Jason, Chris, George, Koby, Ken, Thyatira, William, Invernos, Paul, Pat, Warren, Mitch, and Jess for sponsoring me on , and making it easier for me to spend more of my time writing. Additional thanks go to the incomparable LogicalPremise for his amazing set of references covering many untouched facets of the _Mass Effect_ universe, as well as listening to me ramble about ideas for the future of this story.

* * *

"Miranda Lawson, I presume?"

Looking up from a dinner salad that was far higher quality than had any right to exist on Omega of all places, Miranda raised an eyebrow at the cloaked figure standing just inside the door. Almost five minutes ago, the woman had arrived and dismissed the massive asari who'd been serving as Miranda's guard; the food wasn't quite distractingly good enough for her to have missed that. But apart from that… nothing. The woman had simply stood there watching her eat. Miranda wasn't done with her food yet, so she hadn't been observing any sort of culinary courtesy. Perhaps she'd simply gotten bored? "And if I told you I wasn't?"

The woman - presumably asari, given the company she kept and the general composition of the Sylléktries - drifted forward, taking a seat opposite Miranda. With her cloak casting a shadow over the upper half of her face, it was impossible to know exactly where she was looking… but Miranda had the distinct feeling she was being inspected. "Is there something you'd rather I call you? Miri? Randa? Mira? Perhaps a nickname that's not a diminutive?"

"I was attempting to imply that you had the wrong woman, but… I've never been called Mira before by anyone. Let's try that, see how I like it." Miranda found a strange sort of liberation in her predicament: she would likely suffer the same fate as Brooks once this woman grew bored with her and there was absolutely nothing she could do about it, so why not have a bit of the fun she'd routinely denied herself in the time she had left? "I don't suppose I'll be getting dessert, too? Because for some reason, I'm really craving chocolate cake tonight…"

With her visitor's face visible from the nose down, Miranda could watch the corner of the asari's mouth turn upward in a faint smile. "Cake can be arranged, Mira. Do you know why you're here?"

Miranda shrugged, shoveling another forkful of greens into her mouth. Whoever was arranging her food had really done their homework; while the salad wasn't quite like anything she prepared for herself, it was similar enough to be palatable while being different enough to demonstrate that they could get access to most anything they desired even aboard a hive of scum and villainy like Omega. Whether it was creepy or touching that someone had put so much work into learning about her, she'd yet to decide. "You're a Sylléktria, we were ordered here to interfere with what you're doing. I figure that you're going to interrogate me as the ranking operative and then once I'm no longer useful, I'll end up suffering the same fate as Brooks."

"I can truthfully say that I have absolutely no intention of interrogating you, mostly because you know nothing about Cerberus that I don't. If you were a higher-ranking operative, there would be a chance that you attended off the record meetings that we'd be curious about, but as it stands? My people long ago penetrated what passes for security on Cerberus's servers, and we continue to come and go as we please. How else do you think I knew that you're disgusted by tomatoes but enjoy Thessian fruits on your salad? Or which fish to add for protein, and how to season it?" The woman leaned forward, her hood pulling up a bit further but still not revealing her eyes. "And I'm certainly not going to kill you. I'm here to… recruit you. After a fashion."

…she could honestly say that she hadn't seen that one coming. Miranda stuck another forkful of salad into her mouth and then another, using the time it took to chew and swallow them to formulate a response. Finally, she took a sip of water and then leaned forward. "If you know me even half as well as you think you do, then you should know that I-"

"You're an incredible young woman who has been backed into a corner and driven to do unpalatable things by circumstances beyond her control. Or at least that's what I've taken away from all the research I've done on you. I could be wrong, but I doubt that I am." The asari leaned forward and stretched her arm out between them, activating her omni-tool and projecting a video of a pair of asari maidens laughing as they sat on either side of a very familiar young woman. "I have a team of commandos on Illium awaiting my signal. In less than an hour, your sister could be on her way to a new life somewhere that your father could never reach her. Somewhere infinitely more secure than anything your 'Illusive Man' could ever hope to provide for you, even if he moved her to his station in the Anadius system. Oriana could finally grow up in peace, free to pursue an education in absolutely any field she so chose, learning from professors that put some of Thessia and Illium's best to shame."

Sucking in a breath, Miranda glared at the asari, her hand dropping to the submachine gun that they'd left her with for some unknown reason. How dare she? How dare she violate Miranda's privacy this way? How dare she bring Oriana into things? And worst of all… how dare she give Miranda hope that maybe her continuing struggle with her psychopath of a father could possibly come to an end? "We've had to move her twice in the last year to stay ahead of my father's agents. It's not fair to her, not in the least… but the alternative is unthinkable." She watched the video stream for several seconds, the hand resting on her gun slowly relaxing as Oriana finished yet another story that set her asari companions to laughing. A jaded little part of her whispered that she was being simultaneously presented with both the carrot and the stick: the Sylléktries could kill Oriana just as easily at this point as they could relocate her for Miranda. Given the effort they were putting in to seem non-threatening and helpful, though? While Miranda was sure the thought had occurred to her companion, she somehow doubted that the conversation would turn to threats if she declined. Key word being 'if' she declined. She was tempted. The protection in and of itself was a tempting offer, and Miranda was sure they had more to offer her. But… "Why me? Why go through all this trouble? What could I possibly offer you? And do you have a name? I'd feel rude if I continually referred to you as… well, you."

In a gesture of trust on par with allowing Miranda to remain armed, the asari removed her omni-tool and left it sitting in the middle of the table so the brunette could watch her sister, and then reached up to pull her hood down. That in turn thoroughly distracted Miranda from the video feed; the woman in front of her was easily the most alien-looking being she'd ever come face-to-face with. "My name is Matriarch Luciana of the Sylléktrion Collective, and I have been watching you with interest for years, Mira. Out of curiosity… I know that you weren't given any files on us. Please tell me that you were briefed in person about my kind before you were shipped off to interfere with our operation?"

"…not really, no. Brooks and I were told that you're members of an extremist asari cult that exists outside of the Republics' jurisdiction, and that you routinely approach members of both your own and other species to seduce them into leaving their lives behind and joining your cult, possibly in connection with the largely unknown Athamian beliefs that you still cling to despite the majority of asari transitioning to following siari." Miranda grew more and more hesitant as she spoke, watching as Luciana's eyes grew wider and her jaw dropped. When the woman began laughing loudly, Miranda sighed and set her fork down. "I'm grossly misinformed, aren't I?"

Nodding, Luciana reached forward and plucked a slice of flame-tree fruit from Miranda's salad, popping it into her mouth. "Given the number of times Cerberus's agenda and ours has clashed in recent years? I would say deliberately mislead rather than simply misinformed. We're an independent asari power; think Illium but on a far grander scale. We're largely atheist; we left Thessia before the rise of siari but know enough that we don't worship Athame either. Although I could see how our lifestyle could be presented that way to the uninformed, given who and what Athame really was. And while we do approach outsiders regularly about working with us, the way I am now with both you and the couple you were sent to try and keep from us? Very few opt to join us when our collaboration is done and we respect their decision. The Sylléktrion Collective… the simplest way to explain my people is that we're eugenicists. According to a very reliable source of intelligence, the entire galaxy will come under attack within my children's lifetime. So as part of preparing for that, the Sylléktries are constantly looking for the best and brightest to join with, to ensure that our next generation is the best it can possibly be. Increasingly, that's meant joining with non-Sylléktries and providing… incentives… to secure their cooperation."

Miranda watched warily as Luciana reached for her salad again, poking the back of the asari's hand with her fork before shaking it warningly. "You're not the only biotic in this room. I need my calories too. Now, based on this new information, I think I have a better idea as to why I'm here. You've evidently been studying me intently and have decided that I'm one of the 'best and brightest' that humanity at a minimum currently has to offer, perhaps the galaxy as a whole. You want me to have a daughter with a Sylléktria, and you're hoping that you can bribe me into agreeing by offering better protection for Oriana than Cerberus can provide. Or so you claim."

"How secure can your sister possibly be when the Illusive Man and your father are old friends? Or did you honestly believe that your father continually manages to discover Oriana's location all by himself?" Luciana grinned smugly as she reached in again, stealing a slice of strawberry from the stunned Miranda's plate. She'd known that her father was a part of Cerberus in the past; she'd used information taken from his computers to track them down for herself. But she'd been told that he had withdrawn his support for the organization when the Illusive Man refused to hand Miranda and Oriana over to him. Suddenly, her problems over the past few years made a lot more sense: the Illusive Man was playing her against her father. One hand was securing her loyalty by pretending to protect Oriana, even as the other exploited her father's desire to regain control of his heiress and exchanged information for… likely money, but possibly some other resource. Assuming Luciana was telling the truth, and while she had every reason to lie to Miranda at the moment? Her words made far too much sense for Miranda to immediately dismiss them. "You're not truly loyal to the Illusive Man, at least not yet. You went to Cerberus - and remain with them - because you need their resources. I can provide you with better resources and a less distasteful lifestyle. So yes, I do believe I can convince you to agree to what I want."

Scowling as the asari went in for yet another piece of fruit, Miranda jabbed Luciana's hand harder with the tines of her fork. "Stop that. And you've made a horrible mistake, you know. You've let me know that I'm valuable to you. If I wanted to, I could get up and walk out the door right now, and you won't try to stop me because-" Speech failed her as the world around her went teal, leaving Miranda unable to do anything but watch as Luciana raided her plate for several more pieces of fruit. Then the world's colors returned to normal, and Miranda sagged a bit in her seat. "…right. Stasis. I haven't fought many asari; I forgot you can do that. Bugger."

Luciana shrugged even as she raised her hand, letting a very weak biotic field form around it and demonstrating that Miranda's eyes had been functioning perfectly well: the woman's biotics were in fact teal instead of the standard blue. Fascinating. "Which isn't to say that I wouldn't let you walk away if you wanted to. I'm fascinated with you but I'm hardly a psychopath. Or a rapist. That said? Once you hear what I'm offering, I somehow doubt you'll be racing for the door."

"I work for Cerberus and you want me to shag an asari. Don't be so sure of that."

"The two maidens who trained you before your first mission to Illium speak very highly of your skills, and you sought out not only them but three more of Trellani's acolytes for… 'advanced technique training', I believe you called it? You're no Kelly Chambers, but you're hardly a xenophobe, Mira." Even as Miranda blushed darkly at that, Luciana leaned forward and spread her hands wide. "I've had a very unusual and trying evening, and so I'm going to be uncharacteristically blunt with you because I ran out of patience and subtlety roughly two hours and four terrible puns ago. My interest in you is partially professional as a Sylléktrion matriarch, but mostly personal. I'm currently searching for a new bondmate to spend my remaining century or so of life with, with whom I hope to raise one more daughter. After an exhaustive study of some of the galaxy's most noteworthy individuals, I have decided that I would like that bondmate to be you. In return for serving as the aithntar to my final daughter, your companionship, and hopefully one day your affection? I will give you anything that your heart desires. Including ensuring that your sister is safe and happy until the day she finally dies."

Miranda took all of that in, her eyes never once leaving the four golden orbs that were fixed on her. Then she nodded slowly, reaching down and pushing her salad to the side. "This discussion is going to require a very large slice of cake. And some elasa. Tell them to bring an entire bottle. I have a feeling that we'll be needing it all."

* * *

"So you brought me all the way here to tell me… nothing?"

"To tell you that I have no news for you."

"Remind me again what I'm paying you for?"

"You're not paying me anything. You're exploiting the fact that our families have known each other since our great-great-great-grandparents went to Hogwarts together to get me to do what you want." The French-accented contralto emerged from behind a wall of holographic displays that disappeared with a sweeping wave of a fine-boned hand, and Mireille Malfoy sighed before leaning back in her seat, annoyance plain on her face as she shook her head at her visitor. "And I can't give you what I don't have. Our orbital sensor nets allow the Office of Wizarding Life Supervision to pinpoint any magic usage within ten feet and tell exactly who did it… on Systems Alliance worlds. And certain sections of the Citadel, at least when the keepers aren't destroying our equipment. I'm not saying that your source is lying to you about Potter's return, I'm simply saying that if they're telling the truth? He's not in our space. He could be on a wildcat colony, he could be in Republic or Hierarchy or Union territory… he could be on Illium or Omega for all we know. Or he could be here in Vancouver, and him and Lovegood just aren't using magic for some reason. Either way, I can't find him."

Groaning, Ismene sank down into the chair on the opposite side of Mireille's desk. "Bloody fucking lovely. My leave from the _Dùn Èideann_ ends tomorrow, and the best that the Alliance Intelligence Service can give me is that my great-great-grandfather isn't in Alliance space. I should have just gone to the Shadow Broker; from what I've heard, he has enough moles in this place to know-"

Mireille chuckled lowly at that, reaching up to tap her finger against her temple. "Absolutely nothing out of OWLS. The rest of the AIS might leak like a sieve, but I screen my people regularly with legilimency to ensure their loyalty." As she lowered her hand, she curled it into a fist before flicking her fingers outward, tendrils of electricity arcing between her slender digits. "One person was foolish enough to entertain an offer from the Shadow Broker a year or so back. I… made sure the others understood why that was a terrible idea."

What she was implying made Ismene shudder; while she lacked her distant cousin's natural affinity for lightning, it was an area of magic that she was capable enough in and she'd used it several times against batarians during more desperate points of the fighting on Mindoir. The smell still haunted her, to say nothing of the sights and sounds of watching other sentient beings slowly succumb to electrocution at her hand. Enough of her thoughts must have shown on her face that Mireille curled her hand into a fist once more to quash the lightning, an apologetic look on her face. Ismene waved dismissively; she wasn't in the mood for sympathy today. Instead, she did her best to force a smile as she tried to lighten the mood. "And here I thought you stuck to using your allure and the threat of your father to keep people in line."

"Ugh, please don't remind me of who I'm descended from. His portrait is hanging in my quarters these days; my mother paid me more than I'll make in the next decade to 'convince' me to take him with me when I moved out of the manor. Which reminds me, Draco's portrait is framed as a diptych with one of your several times great-aunt Astoria, and she'd like to meet you one of these days. Swing by my place next time you're on the planet." Ismene offered a mocking salute before rolling her eyes; from what her great-great grandmother had told her, Astoria Greengrass had been a gold digging sycophant barely fit to graduate Hogwarts, who had chosen to attach herself to the first man stupid enough to succumb to her feminine wiles. As opposed to Daphne herself, who was admittedly a gold digger but far more talented and intelligent than her younger sister. "As for the allure, it only works on the weak-willed, which leaves out most of my underlings." Mireille grinned widely as she leaned forward to rest her elbows on her desk, giving Ismene a good view down the front of her black tank top. "A good push up bra works nearly as well, though."

Ismene let her gaze dip for a moment before smirking as she met Mireille's eyes once more. "Pity the Greengrass in you didn't breed true. Or the Black. We don't need any help to achieve that particular look."

"No, you just need minimizer bras to fit into your armor."

"Better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it."


	14. Chapter 14

Joe's Note: After spending some time doing more comprehensive outlining of the future of this story, I'm finally back. While obviously we're going to end up merging our way into the canon events of the first game at a minimum, I wanted to figure out what - if anything - I wanted to accomplish between now and then before I went any further with this story. Spoiler alert: I figured it out. From here, we're going to get one final chapter to wrap up things in this particular time frame and then skip ahead one year for Chapter 16. We'll be spending only a brief period in 2182; Chapter 17 will bring us ahead into 2183 and cover the _Marauder_ arriving at Eden Prime in response to the colony's frantic distress call…  
Dedications &amp; Thanks: To Nicholas, Alexander, Howard, Alonsis2, Connor, MJ, Daniel, Christopher, Janne, Eric, DireSquirrel, Joseph, mpop, RileyWestfall, bloodylord, Luke, Zachary, Marc, Ziryo, Elliot, Crusifikz70, Timothy, Leigh, Jason, Chris, George, Koby, Ken, Dimitria, William, Invernos, Paul, Pat, Joel, Kentucky Fried Dragon, Warren, Mitch, and Jess for sponsoring me on , and making it easier for me to spend more of my time writing. Additional thanks go to the incomparable LogicalPremise for his amazing set of references covering many untouched facets of the _Mass Effect_ universe, as well as listening to me ramble about ideas for the future of this story.

* * *

"You're wearing my jumpsuit? That's an… interesting… fashion choice."

"Correction: it was your jumpsuit, Mira. It's mine now."

Miranda let out a soft snort as she glanced over at Luciana, watching as the asari turned back and forth, admiring her reflection in the mirror. While the brunette still wasn't entirely sold on a proposal that quite frankly seemed too good to be true, she'd decided to spend the night with the woman… which was to say that they had spent hours talking before eventually falling asleep together, as opposed to how Kelly Chambers 'spent the night' with any alien that showed her the slightest bit of attention. Given the almost nine centuries of age difference, they actually had surprising amount of things in common, even if the asari's sense of humor wasn't quite to Miranda's taste. If anything was going to make her say no to Luciana's offer, it would probably be the prospect of spending the rest of her life listening to terrible puns.

Or possibly the rest of Luciana's life; between her age and Miranda's genetic enhancements, they weren't sure which of them had the greater life expectancy at this point.

Wasn't 'terrible puns' a bit redundant? Were there actually any good puns?

Come morning, Miranda had decided to take a risk and order Luciana's underling to retrieve her belongings from the shuttle that she'd arrived on Omega in. Thankfully Asteria - as she'd later learned the massive asari was named - had seemed more amused than offended by her presumption, delivering a plate of steak and eggs along with Luciana's more traditionally asari breakfast before offering a mocking little bow and wandering off to fulfill Miranda's request. She'd returned by the end of their meal with a slender, limping Sylléktria named Pelesa, the pair laden with literally everything in the shuttle that hadn't been welded down.

Finding her clothing and toiletries in that mess had taken a bit of work, but that had only made the almost sinfully long shower that had followed even more enjoyable for Miranda. Apparently, Luciana hadn't been idle during that time, raiding the brunette's bags and emerging after her own time in the bathroom wearing… "You wouldn't be wrong. It's certainly never going to fit me properly again."

Her preening came to an abrupt stop and Luciana peered back over her shoulder at Miranda with a distinctly hurt expression on her face. "…are you calling me fat?"

"Since there's nobody else around to hear me say this and ruin my carefully cultivated image… Luciana, you're currently twenty pounds of ass in a ten pound sack. Likewise with your breasts. As close as I supposedly am to perfection - or at least my father's idea of it - you have a figure that makes me look like a twelve-year-old gymnast in comparison and that outfit was never meant to contain it." The corner of Miranda's mouth quirked upward at the distinctly pleased expression she received in return; even if she eventually decided for some reason that the woman's offer wasn't worth taking, building a cordial relationship with the leader of one of the strongest powers in known space could prove beneficial. "That said, it's a very good look for you. I'm surprised you're willing to wear something with a Cerberus logo on it, though. Two of them, even."

Her peculiar teal biotics erupted around Luciana's hand as she made a pulling motion, summoning her cloak to her and swinging it onto her shoulders. It settled into place perfectly over the white marks that adorned each shoulder of the black and orange jumpsuit while doing absolutely nothing to disrupt the view of the asari's deep cleavage. Pulling the hood up until it covered her eyes, Luciana gave herself a final once over in the mirror before spinning around and extending a hand to Miranda. "Would you be willing to serve as my seeing-eye human for the morning, or should I summon Asteria?"

Reaching out, Miranda took the woman's hand cautiously and then stiffened as she was bombarded by images: walking through cities with predominantly asari architecture that still showed distinctly alien influence, moving amongst asari of every shape and size clad in purple, gold, and white. Interacting with a Prothean beacon to summon a green-tinged hologram of what looked like a Collector but Miranda instinctively knew to be a true prothean. Spending time relaxing on the veranda of a seaside home, surrounded by… they would be her step-children and step-grandchildren if she took Luciana's offer, wouldn't they? Sitting at an ornate desk while poring over files that documented herself and dozens of other sentient beings in exhaustive detail. With a gasp, Miranda wrenched her hand out of Luciana's and stumbled back, staring at the woman with wide eyes. "What… what was that?"

Luciana returned Miranda's wide-eyed look of surprise for a few seconds before throwing her head back and laughing loudly. Taking a step forward, she brushed her fingers over Miranda's tentatively, eliciting another brief flash of imagery before grinning widely. "That was you proving yourself to be even more magnificent than I could have anticipated. Protheans were capable of something akin to what you would call psychometry; they possessed an experiential exchange system based on physical touch. Mánteis like myself have inherited that ability from our aithntars."

"Experiential exchange system?" Miranda brushed her fingers over the back of Luciana's hand hesitantly, closing her eyes so that the flash of images didn't disorient her this time. This time, she was gifted with a view of her own face through Luciana's eyes, her own eyes closed and an expression of almost childlike wonder on her face. Pulling away, she did her best to smooth her face into a more serious and thoughtful expression as she rolled that information around in her head. "So essentially you're capable of melding in a completely separate way from how the rest of your species melds?"

Shaking her head, Luciana summoned a pair of gloves with her biotics, tugging them on before reaching up to adjust her hood until it covered her eyes once more. "Closer to linking or bonding at best, but distinctly different from either. Much less invasive and it's generally an unidirectional exchange unless we deliberately choose to reciprocate knowledge. But you? Your mind is so strong that you're managing to instinctively latch onto the connection and follow it back into my own mind. I imagine that it's a disorienting barrage of images for you..?" She paused, waiting for Miranda to nod her assent before continuing. "It always is at first. With time and practice, you might be able to learn to purposefully read any Mántis who touches you." Grinning widely, Luciana took Miranda's hand and interlaced their fingers. "And you wonder why I chose you?"

Miranda peered down at their joined hands before pulling away, looping her arm through Luciana's before slipping her hand back into the asari's. "It'll be easier to guide you this way. And to answer your question, I believe it was chiefly because of my biotics, my eyes, and my ass, although you did take a number of others factors into consideration." Luciana leaned back a bit at that, pointedly staring down at Miranda's ass and smirking. "I have no idea what you see in it, especially compared to your own figure… but I suppose the appreciation is flattering nonetheless. Oh, and for the record? Sir Mix-a-Lot wasn't actually a knight. That was just his stage name."

"Truly?"

"I'm quite certain."

"How profoundly disappointing. I would have found a way to properly recognize his achievements."

"…he wrote a song about women with big butts."

"He promoted the appreciation of fine female forms."

Well, technically she wasn't wrong…

* * *

"I just realized something. Alyona-"

"Harry? I realize that our relationship has just entered previously unknown territory and all, but it's still not appropriate to talk about other women when you're in bed. 'Other women' simply includes one less woman than it did yesterday."

"Seeing as how you two are lying on my arms right now… Epee, would you be a dear and swat Luna upside the head for me?" Harry watched as Epipsychidion reached across his body hesitantly, swatting the side of Luna's head and earning a soft huff from the blonde. "Thank you. Now, as I was saying? Alyona. You were out and about longer than I was yesterday; did Aria talk you into reversing my transfiguration before you apparated back here with Luciana and Epee?" Luna slowly shook her head, a curious expression on her face. "Because I obviously didn't it before coming back here, and you and I may very well be the only two people in existence at this point who can. Which means that the poor woman is still stuck as a platypus."

Rolling off of Harry, Luna let the sheets slip down to pool around her waist as she rose into a sitting position, stretching languidly before finally nodding her acquiescence. "It would be rather rude of us to leave her like that, especially if we're going to pack up and follow Epee back to Óasi. I'll do that after Luciana stops by to introduce us to Miranda… which I hope is soon, because she's got rather extensive medical training and I'm pretty sure that you have a cracked pelvis, Harry." Leaning over, she retrieved her wand from the bedside table and waved it over his body in a complex pattern. Epipsychidion let out a gasp of surprise as a faintly glowing rendition of Harry's skeleton rose up out of his body, mostly bluish-white with two angry red streaks marring his right ilium. "I stand corrected. She rode you so hard that she cracked your pelvis twice."

Well, that explained the persistent burning pain in his hips, Harry mused. It was actually a fairly evenly distributed pain, which left him surprised that he didn't have matching fractures on the opposite side, especially given the cause of the injury. Reaching up, he forced his own magic into the construct and took control of it, enlarging the model to get a better look at the damage to his pelvis before eventually dispelling it with a flick of his fingers. "I'm not even going to ask who Miranda is or why Luciana is going to bring her here, but do we really have to wait until then to treat this? I've had worse, but it's not exactly the most pleasant feeling in the world."

"Miranda Lawson. Luna mentioned her last night just after Luciana left; this one still finds your 'legilimency' discomfiting and so she would prefer to provide the details rather than hear about how Luna picked through her leader's mind." Epipsychidion gingerly shifted so that she was no longer lying halfway atop Harry, remaining tucked under his right arm and twining a leg around his as she rested her cheek on his shoulder. It was a little surprising how comfortable they were together, Harry mused, what with his reluctance to make the jump to a polyamorous relationship combined with Epipsychidion's rustiness when it came to both physical and emotional intimacy. What didn't surprise him at all was that despite the asari's desire to take things slowly, it hadn't taken Luna more than fifteen minutes to peel Epipsychidion out of her armor and end up with her head between a pair of toned blue thighs.

By the time Luna finally let Epipsychidion catch her breath, Harry had come to the conclusion that the bell couldn't exactly be unwrung and decided to just… go with things for once in his life. Not being the largest person in the bed had definitely been a bit weird - Epipsychidion had roughly as many inches on him as Harry did on Luna - but it hadn't been a bad weird. Just weird. Well, her quickly aborted attempt to turn him into the little spoon while cuddling between rounds of sex had been a bad weird, but they'd laughed it off and moved on easily enough. And… wait. She was speaking. Harry shook his head to clear it of idle thoughts before offering Epipsychidion an apologetic smile. "I'm sorry, I was a million miles away. Can you start over for me?"

Despite the handful of similarities to Hermione that Harry had already noticed, Epipsychidion thankfully lacked the vague sense of condescension that the brunette exuded when it came to exchanges of knowledge, offering him a faint smile before fulfilling his request. "Miranda is a Cerberus operative and the singularly most genetically modified human known to exist at present. Frightfully intelligent even by Sylléktrion standards, the holder of multiple doctorates spanning a variety of medical and scientific disciplines, and the third most powerful human biotic on record. The head of Cerberus and Miranda's father are currently engaged in a convoluted, long-term plan to deceive Miranda and keep her subservient and bound to the organization. Luciana planned to expose their duplicity in an effort to sway Miranda into joining the Sylléktries."

Leaning across Harry's body, Luna gently trailed her fingers over Epipsychidion's crest as the asari spoke, following the patterns of flickering light backward and waiting until the older woman was finished before offering her two knuts. "I'm looking forward to meeting her because she's a bit of a boff; seeing her reaction to magic is going to be hilarious. And she's got a nice arse… for a human woman at least."

Harry blinked at that, turning away from Epipsychidion's bemused face to peer up at Luna curiously. "When you say something like that, you do remember that you're a human woman, right? And that most of the women you've tried to get me to sleep with are humans too?"

"Yes and now that I've discovered the existence of asari, I have higher standards for the arses than I used to. It's called personal growth and self-improvement, Harry."

While he was pretty sure that wasn't actually self-improvement in the least, Harry was even more sure that Luna was having him on and so he shook his head in amusement rather than take the bait. Then something occurred to him and he frowned, glancing from Luna to Epipsychidion and back. "Wait a minute. If I'm not supposed to bring up Alyona in bed because she's another woman, why are you allowed to talk about-"

"Nobody here wants to sleep with Miranda. It's a totally different situation."

"I don't want to sleep with Alyona!"

"Who said anything about you?"

"If that's the case, then why are we allowed to talk about Luciana?"

"…you've got me there."

Harry chuckled, leaning up so that he could give Luna a peck on the lips and then wincing as his hip protested the fairly minute movement. "Well now that we've settled that, can you get up and dig out some Skele-Gro for me? Even if modern medicine has caught up enough to fix me as quickly as magic can, I'd really much rather meet Luciana's new flame with some pants on." A strange, harsh blatting noise filled the apartment and while Harry had never heard it before - Krína and Aria had both entered without asking, and Luna had apparated Luciana and Epipsychidion directly into their apartment - he had a sinking suspicion that he knew exactly what it meant. "Of course they're here. Luna? Epee? Not exactly up for running around at the moment."

Pushing up off the bed, Epipsychidion let out a faint squeak and brought a hand up to catch the sliding sheet, pinning it to her chest before it could slip too far down. It was an entirely unnecessary attempt at modesty given what they'd been up to for the past… what, half a day, give or take an hour or two? But while the modesty was unnecessary, her move brought home a very salient problem: none of them were exactly dressed for guests at the moment. Not that he could really do anything about it at the moment - how had he not noticed how much pain he was in before now? - but Epipsychidion and Luna… actually, Luna didn't seem to mind her state of undress at all. Rising from the bed without a care, she casually crossed the room heedless of her nudity, stopping in front of the door and studying the glowing circle that hovered in the middle of it. It took her a few seconds to figure out how to manipulate the electronic locking mechanism, and then the door opened with a hiss to reveal the exact two visitors that Luna had predicted. "You must be Miranda. I saw a great many things about you in Luciana's head, most of them good. Tell me, has she talked you into letting her eat your ass yet?"

"…you know such charming people, Luciana." Several inches taller than Luna, Miranda could easily peer over the top of the blonde's head, her eyes widening in surprise as she took in the sight of a covered - but still quite obviously naked - Harry and Epipsychidion on the bed. Her eyes narrowed and she slowly turned to stare at Luciana, her voice becoming drier than one of Hagrid's rock cakes. "Dear _Fornax_ Forum, I never thought this would happen to me, but…"

Luciana raised her hands in surrender before pointing one finger at Luna. "I have absolutely no idea what's going on here, but I'm reasonably certain that she's the one to blame for it."

Rolling her eyes, Luna grabbed Miranda by the wrist and tugged, dragging the taller woman through the doorway and then across the apartment to where Harry and Epipsychidion were waiting. "If you could both get your minds out of the gutter, I would appreciate it. Poor Harry is injured and since Miranda has extensive medical training, we decided to wait until you two arrived rather than trying to take him somewhere for treatment."

That statement seemed to catch Miranda's attention, the bemused smirk on her face falling away in favor of a more serious expression. "What happened? It can't be too serious if you were willing to wait until-"

"It turns out that Epee has been suppressing certain urges for so long that when she finally gave in for the first time since the Glorious Revolution, she rode Harry so hard that she broke her hip." Releasing Miranda's wrist, Luna moved to sit on the bed beside Epipsychidion, rubbing the asari's crests gently as she shot Miranda a wink. "I mean, I'm hardly innocent here: shagged Harry twice myself, and was a terribly wicked influence on poor innocent Epee. But she's the one who rode him five separate times and the one who was atop him when the actual injury occurred, so I believe the blame is technically hers?"

"I repeat: charming." Miranda shook her head as she activated her omni-tool, circling around the bed to stand at Harry's left before leaning in and scanning him. She frowned as she waved the device back and forth, generating a holographic readout that - save for the orange tinge - was shockingly similar to the one that Luna had created using magic. "Interestingly enough, she's not wrong. Two stress fractures to the right ilium. You must be in incredible pain right now." Harry shrugged lackadaisically; he'd had worse. Miranda shook her head before shutting down her omni-tool and turning to look at Luciana. "Since I'm assuming that it's my job to fix this, I'm going to need you to send Asteria back to our room to retrieve some equipment for me. And while we wait for her to deliver it, we're going to discuss your idea of sticking me with this pair until I can bring them into the twenty-second century and exactly what an appropriate additional fee for such a service might be…"


	15. Chapter 15

Joe's Note: As promised, we're going to get one last chapter to wrap up things in 2181 before moving ahead to the events of _Mass Effect_. Well, kinda. We're going to see that single chapter in 2182, but then it's on to the events of the games. For those of you who are worried… while Harry's adventures will intersect with those of his descendant, the _Marauder_ isn't going to replace the _Normandy_ nor will Harry be leaving his ship - and people - behind to tag along aboard the _Normandy_ during Ismene's adventures. Not only would that almost completely usurp her role as a heroine, but he just plain knows too much thanks to his affiliation with the Sylléktries. After all, how much of a mystery would the Conduit be - and how hard would Ilos be to find - when Luciana is a descendant of an Ilosian prothean?  
Dedications &amp; Thanks: To Nicholas, Alexander, Howard, Alonsis2, Connor, MJ, Daniel, Christopher, Fablesrogue, Morgan, Janne, Eric, DireSquirrel, Joseph, Jason, mpop, RileyWestfall, bloodylord, Luke, Zachary, Marc, Ziryo, Elliot, Crusifikz70, Timothy, Leigh, Chris, George, Koby, Ken, Dimitria, William, Invernos, Paul, Pat, Joel, Kentucky Fried Dragon, Warren, Mitch, and Jess for sponsoring me on , and making it easier for me to spend more of my time writing. Additional thanks go to the incomparable LogicalPremise for his amazing set of references covering many untouched facets of the _Mass Effect_ universe, as well as listening to me ramble about ideas for the future of this story. In this chapter in particular, I've drawn heavily against his backstory for Aria and why she chose to make Omega her home because while I'm not sure it'll ever be relevant, I like having that information in the back of my head.

* * *

"Seeing as how the Sylléktries possess truly remarkable information security capabilities… I don't suppose you'd be willing to shed a bit of light on why they're so interested in you?" Looking up from the terminal in front of him, Harry raised an eyebrow as Miranda stared down at him critically, a hand on her hip as she tapped her fingers slowly. "Luciana made a fairly solid case the other night as to why she's courting me. You and Luna… there's obviously something special about you if the Illusive Man sent me out here to try and recruit you out from under their noses. But for the life of me, I can't figure out what quality you two might possess that has everyone so obsessed with you."

Harry continued to gaze up at Miranda in disbelief for several seconds but in the end, he couldn't help it and burst out laughing. Luna soon joined him, the pair sharing a look before glancing back in Miranda's direction and laughing all the harder. Over and over again, the pair would start to wind down and grow more sober, and then Harry's eyes would find Miranda's indignant face and he'd be unable to stop from laughing anew. Finally, he managed to regain control of himself and took a deep breath before finally answering her question. "Well, it's actually pretty simple, Miranda: they're all after our magic."

Screwing her face up in disgust, Miranda let out a loud sigh. "Well that explains everything. I was wondering how two individuals in this day and age could be so thoroughly backward. You two are from Mindoir or one of the other agrarian colonies, aren't you? 'Magic' indeed. It's called biotics, and there's nothing 'magical' about our ability to manipulate… mass.. effect… fields…" The brunette trailed off as she found herself staring in disbelief at the faintly glowing kitten in her hand which - up until Luna had surreptitiously drawn and flicked her wand - had previously been Miranda's datapad. "How did you..?"

"Magic."

"In all seriousness, how are you affecting my perceptions so that I can see a cat? Only one known biotic technique can-"

"Magic."

It took almost a minute of poking and prodding - and at one point sniffing and then licking it - to convince Miranda that the kitten was in fact real, the brunette gingerly setting it down on the desk in front of Harry and Luna before taking a step back. "Either you're capable of altering all five of my senses simultaneously with no visible sign of using biotics and no apparent effort… or you've somehow turned an inanimate object into a living, breathing mammal. I think… I think I need to sit down."

Harry exchanged a grin with Luna before drawing his own wand, flicking it and conjuring an ornate, almost throne-like black chair directly behind Miranda. "Here you go." Rather than take advantage of the chair that he was so considerately providing for her, Miranda's eyes promptly rolled up into her head and she collapsed straight down onto the floor. Clucking his tongue softly, Harry looked over at Luna as he reached out toward the datakitten. "This is why I should stop being nice to people. I feel like nobody appreciates the gesture anymore." His fingers finding feathers instead of fur, Harry glanced back down in surprise and found Wednesday glaring up at him, interposed between his hand and the transfigured kitten. "Now where did you come from?"

Reaching out, Luna scooped up her pet and cuddled it to her chest, rubbing her cheek against the top of Wednesday's head. "I'm not sure, but I have a sinking suspicion that the author forgot about her for the last… eight chapters or so?" Harry opened his mouth… and then decided he was better off not knowing.

* * *

"You were a surprisingly gracious and accommodating hostess for a ruthless space pirate queen. I'm going to miss you."

"Lovegood, the only reason I haven't had you thrown out an airlock is because I'm not sure if even that would kill you. You've repeatedly invaded my personal space, touched me without permission, taken shots at my security staff, turned my chief of security into a platypus, tried to fuck my daughter…"

"I most certainly did not… do at least one of those things. Two, technically; I tried to talk Liselle into stripping for me, not shagging me. As for Alyona, Harry transfigured her during their duel and I was the one who was nice enough to fix her for you. You're welcome, by the way."

After spending the past two weeks in Epipsychidion's company, Harry still wasn't sure he'd ever develop feelings for her on the same level that he felt for Luna or Luna evidently felt for the asari… but he liked her well enough that he could see himself living with her long-term. It probably wasn't the best foundation for a polyamorous relationship that would someday include children, but given that the Sylléktries were itching to leave Omega behind and return to their homeworld? It would have to do for now. Harry just considered himself lucky that Miranda was supposed to be his and Luna's teacher rather than anything more; she was a nice enough woman but far, far too rigid in her thinking for his tastes. It was like an uncomfortably sexy version of Hermione at eleven years of age, complete with the oversized teeth.

Although to be fair, Miranda had far better hair than Hermione had ever possessed in the time that he'd known her.

It had been over a week since they'd introduced her to magic - albeit rather jarringly - and Miranda still couldn't wrap her head around the fact that something so contrary to her scientific education could possibly exist. That left Harry wondering… had the Illusive Man set his own people up to fail for some unfathomable reason, or had he simply not known what Harry and Luna truly were? The former seemed more plausible than the latter - if he hadn't know they were magical, then why bother with Harry and Luna at all? - but if it was in fact the truth of the matter? What a fucking wanker.

Pulling himself from his thoughts, Harry found that Aria was shaking her head in disgust as she stared at Luna; her gaze then drifted to the left a bit to rest on Harry for a few seconds before sliding rightward across Luna to settle on Epipsychidion. "And just think, you're going to be stuck raising your first children with this lunatic."

Drawing herself up to her full - and considerable - height, Epipsychidion wrapped one arm around Luna's shoulders as the bioluminescent nodes in her crests pulsed with a mixture of orange and red shades. "This one is confident that she has chosen her future bondmate and the aithntar of her eventual children well. This one also thinks that you would do well to remember exactly who you are speaking to - both in terms of age and stature - before you continue to insult her choice of bondmate."

"You do realize that I have access to what passes for the extranet on Óasi through Pelesa, right? Pulling the matriarch and Justicar Mistress cards would be a lot more intimidating if you'd actually accomplished anything in your life. I'm… appropriately respectful… of Layana and her people because I've had the displeasure of crossing paths with Thessia's justicars in the past, and so I know exactly how dangerous they are. You?" Aria snorted indelicately before pointing off to Epipsychidion's right. "For all your centuries of training, I'm pretty sure that Luciana's new eye candy over there is more dangerous than you. Probably has more practical combat experience, too."

Given that Miranda was evidently a member of a terrorist organization, that probably shouldn't have been as surprising to Harry as it was. Shooting a glance over at the brunette, he found Miranda utterly unfazed by Aria's words as she stood proudly at Luciana's side… and wasn't that cute? They were wearing coordinated outfits. Presumably something from Miranda's wardrobe, given that her outfit fit substantially better than Luciana's and they both lacked some of the stylistic touches that he was starting to notice in all Sylléktrion clothing. "Even so, if Lovegood really is capable of turning people into platypuses, do you want to insult her regardless of how intimidating her new paramour may or may not be?"

"Once again, I didn't turn Alyona into a platypus. Harry did."

"My point stands."

"Meh. I don't really have to worry about Lovegood trying to turn me into an animal because she seems intent on getting into my pants and… wait, you're not into that kind of fucked up shit, right?" Aria eyed Luna uncertainly until understanding dawned, the blonde shaking her head vehemently. "Thank the Goddess. Never thought I'd be thankful that someone I hate wants to fuck me, but here we are. Besides, even if that wasn't the case? This is Omega. Loved ones and even friends are a weakness that others will try to exploit for their own benefit. Last time someone thought they'd found a chink in my armor, I had to make an example out of something like five thousand Blue Suns to prove them wrong."

Harry shuddered at both Aria's words and the cold look on her face; while he'd both killed and ordered the deaths of others during the war against Voldemort, they'd been the enemy. The idea of being surrounded day and night by people who would behave the way that Aria was describing for no other reason than simple personal gain and greed was… nauseating. At the same time, it also made some of their interactions with Aria's people - and Aria herself - slightly more comprehensible. What a terrible form of existence, money and power and pretty dancing girls aside. "Then why do you stay here? Why not follow Pelesa home? Become a Sylléktria? Raise Liselle with her?"

While he couldn't really say that silence descended because Afterlife probably hadn't experienced true silence since before the fall of the western Roman Empire, there was a distinct lull in the conversation as Aria pondered a response to that, a variety of emotions flitting over her face. Finally, she settled on an almost melancholy look, sighing deeply. "Because at the end of the day, I'm not cut out for that kind of life any more than you are. You're going to do your duty to the Sylléktries and then leave Óasi behind for adventure. And you can. Me? I wouldn't have that luxury. I know what's waiting for me outside of the Terminus, and it's even worse than if I ever slip up here. Moving to Óasi would be exchanging one gilded cage for another… and at least here, I'm the queen of my cage."

"With all this talk of cages, am I the only one who's suddenly picturing Aria as a go-go dancer?" Luna raised her hand and looked around curiously, her grin widening when Miranda hesitantly raised a hand of her own. "Also, Harry, we really are better off with her here. If she was our neighbor, it'd be much easier to seduce her and once I accomplished that, I doubt either of us would ever get anything done."

Given their interactions thus far, Harry sincerely doubted that… but he'd also long ago learned to recognize when Luna was taking advantage of her reputation for dottiness to offer those around her a way out of an awkward conversation. And either Aria had pulled more from Luna's head than he thought or she was very good at picking up on subtle clues because rather than the expected argument, she offered a faint smirk in response. "Are you sure you want to do that? Because I'm pretty sure that I could get Potter to leave you for me after he gets a taste of what a real woman can do."

Surprisingly, the rebuttal to that came from someone other than Harry's fiancée or… whatever Epipsychidion now was to him. "And how exactly did I end up getting dragged into this conversation?" Luciana did her best to appear innocent as she looked back and forth between Harry and Aria, her four golden eyes eventually settling on the latter. "I'm sorry, Aria, I could have sworn you said something about a real woman having sex with Harry?"

Merlin's saggy balls, was he the only adult left on Omega? Even Miranda and Epipsychidion of all people looked amused by what was going on. Harry shook his head in resignation before clearing his throat loudly. "If it's all the same to the rest of you? I'm actually looking forward to seeing my first starship so if we could wrap this up, I'd really appreciate it." Or hell, conference calls had existed back before he and Luna had passed through the Veil. If they really wanted to, they could sit down together over the extranet and negotiate a schedule for sharing him or something.

Harry made a mental note to never vocalize that idea, or leave it somewhere in his brain that Luna could stumble over it easily. She was bad enough as it was when it came to trying to get him to shag other women; the last thing she needed was anything remotely resembling encouragement…

* * *

Having long ago grown tired of frantic, last minute preparations thanks to his years spent with the Weasleys, Harry had gone out of his way to ensure that absolutely everything was taken care of before they ventured up to Afterlife. Luna had packed up their belongings while Miranda had been preoccupied with healing his damaged hip, and then he'd prepared breakfast for the entire group. Asteria had returned while they were eating with Calia in tow, and the two had collected Harry and Luna's belongings before returning to their ship. After one last sweep of his own to ensure that absolutely nothing had been left behind, they'd set out to say goodbye to Aria and with that errand completed, there was absolutely nothing left to stand between Harry and his desire to set foot aboard his very first spaceship.

It was… simultaneously and paradoxically both bigger and smaller than Harry had expected. Hearing that they'd fit their entire ship rather than a shuttle of some sort in one of Omega's docking bays, he'd been a bit surprised at the size of the four-winged frigate awaiting them. And yet at the same time, given both Luciana's importance to the Sylléktries and that they must have at least hoped that they'd be transporting two very important guests back to Óasi? Harry wasn't sure why, but he felt like the ship should have been a bit bigger. Still, it was a spaceship that he was going to get to ride in, and that was all that really mattered to him at the end of the day. "Wicked! How fast can it go? Does it have weapons? Other than us, Calia, and Asteria, how many crew does it have?" Oh sweet Merlin, he was turning into Hermione.

"In order? Not counting relay transit, the _Gilos_ can comfortably reach speeds of up to… I want to say six thousand times the speed of light? One of the engineering crew would be able to give you a more precise answer; I may be old and wise even for an asari, but that doesn't mean that I've taken the time to memorize our ships' technical specifications." Coming to a stop beside him with one arm around Miranda's waist, Luciana used her free hand to gesture down the length of the docked frigate. "It is in fact armed, although not exceptionally heavily. Unlike the storm cruisers that you're infatuated with, frigates are built for speed rather than strength and escort frigates even more so than their fully martial cousins. It's hardly helpless, but it's not the sort of ship that you use to pick fights. And her standard compliment is sixty-five crewmen, plus whoever they're ferrying and that person's retinue."

So in other words, it was equal parts swanky private jet and jet fighter. Nice. Harry's eyes remained glued to the _Gilos_ as he slowly walked sideways, using one hand to feel his way along until he reached the docking tube connecting the ship to Omega. When he reached it, he spared a moment to shoot a look of glee at Luna before bounding away down the tube toward the ship. Reaching the hull, he waited impatiently as the dull blue metal doors opened to admit him, then dashed inside… and promptly slammed into someone, sending them both tumbling to the deck. "Bloody… are you okay?"

Unsurprisingly, his victim was an asari and a very unusual-looking one at that… and that was coming from someone who'd had a decent amount of sex in the past few days with a woman who did a passing fair imitation of a glow stick. Her skin was almost uniformly one shade of dusky purple, and completely flawless save for a series of faint grooves that ran down her face. Her crests were also some of the shortest and thickest that Harry had seen to date, the tips coming together to form a point near the back of her head. Oh, and she had glowing eyes with magenta irises, and each hand had only two fingers and a thumb. Those were weird too. Pushing him off of her, the asari sat up and rubbed the back of her head. "By the goddess, didn't anyone ever teach you to look where you were…" Trailing off, the woman tilted her head to one side as she eyed him uncertainly. "What the hell are you?"

"A guest, Adikia. Specifically, one of the guests who I came here to meet." The poor woman that Harry had collided with struggled to her feet at Luciana's voice, coming rigidly to attention even as the cloaked asari raised her hand. "At ease. Are you injured? I know that your kind are some of the frailest among us."

Adikia's nervous but almost worshipful expression quickly gave way to irritation at those words. "What exactly is that supposed to mean? 'My kind'? Are you implying that I'm less able-bodied than my ship sisters just because my father was a quarian? Because I'll have you know that I'm held to - and meet - the same rigorous physical standards as any other asari on this ship." Opening her mouth to reply, Luciana was cut off by a fierce shake of Adikia's head. "Save it. You and your friends may get to sit in a plush cabin from here to Óasi, but some of us actually have work to do. I need to finish the preflight checks so we can undock."

With that, Adikia sniffed haughtily before turning and stalking off, leaving an entranced Harry sitting on the deck as he watched her go. It was as if someone had taken the best parts of Hermione, Daphne, and Luna, blended them with what few good qualities Ginny had possessed, and then poured the whole mess into a glowing-eyed alien body with a spectacular physique. "Who… was that?"

"Adikia'Devir vas Gilos, the ship's chief engineer." Luciana reached down, offering Harry a hand even as she glared at Adikia's retreating back. "Soon to be Adikia'Devir vas Óasi for talking to me that way."

Taking the proffered hand, Harry let Luciana pull him to his feet before nodding his head slowly. While he was obviously new to most everything alien, even he was smart enough to realize that Adikia's odd name had something to do with her current posting and that Luciana was threatening to strip her of it. "You should definitely have her reprimanded and removed from this ship. That way, it won't cause any problems when I ask you to have her assigned to the _Marauder_."

"…what?"

"I like her."

"You like her."

"She's… feisty." She also had one of the smallest waist-to-hip ratios Harry had ever seen, which could prove important if he had still yet to find that special Sylléktrion someone by the time the _Marauder_ was launched…


	16. Chapter 16

Joe's Note: This is going to be the first of two chapters that serve to bridge the gap between Harry's arrival and the events of _Mass Effect_. Not only will his life - and Luna's, obviously - undergo some significant changes in that time that I want to cover so that they don't blindside you when we reach 2183, but it'll also give me the chance to introduce some faces who will make recurring appearances in the story going forward. After all, the core of Harry's deal with the Sylléktries revolves around a ship… and ships have crews. Besides, while the _Normandy_ will exist in this universe and feature most if not all of the familiar faces from canon? The _Normandy_ isn't Harry's ship and his time aboard it - if any - will be minimal. And so his adventures will feature a plethora of asari, none of whom can be culled from canon, and therefore all of whom I must introduce myself. So let's get to it.  
Dedications &amp; Thanks: To Nicholas, Alexander, Howard, David, Alonsis2, MJ, Christopher, Daniel, Fablesrogue, Morgan, Janne, DireSquirrel, Joseph, Jason, mpop, Riley, bloodylord, Luke, Crusifikz70, Zachary, Marc, Ziryo, Elliot, Timothy, Leigh, Chris, George, Koby, Dimitria, William, Stephane, Ken, Warren, Paul, Pat, Joel, Warren, Mitch, and Jess for sponsoring me on , and making it easier for me to spend more of my time writing. Additional thanks go to the incomparable LogicalPremise for his amazing set of references covering many untouched facets of the _Mass Effect_ universe, as well as listening to me ramble about ideas for the future of this story.

* * *

"So, this is the illustrious Harry Potter. I was expecting something… more."

Standing just inside the port airlock of what would nominally be the newest storm cruiser attached to Task Force Eleven of the First Fleet, Harry raised a curious eyebrow at the _Marauder_'s soon-to-be captain. Once he managed to find her face, that was. Like every other Sylléktria he'd met thus far, Allura Vielsa existed outside the engineered uniformity that defined the baseline asari species. In her case? The majority of adult Thessian asari stood somewhere between five feet two inches and five feet ten inches, with very few exceptions. Allura was roughly half a foot shorter than the lower end of that range. Her petiteness made her… cute… to be sure, but it was hardly what he'd imagined the captain of a storm cruiser would look like. "Oh? And what exactly were you expecting?"

Allura looked Harry up and down slowly before shrugging and then offering him a faint smile. "You know, I honestly couldn't tell you. With maybe one or two possible exceptions, you're going to be the first human that my underlings and I ever meet. Luna will be the second. So we don't exactly have anything to use as a basis for comparison. But from the way Matriarch Luciana talked about you when she commed me to inform me of the insanity that she'd agreed to, I was expecting… well, something decidedly more intimidating? You don't look like some sort of all-powerful, practically god-like being to me." Allura paused, tilting her head to the side as she thought about that. "Then again, I've never met an all-powerful, practically god-like being before either, so I'm not quite sure what one is supposed to look like."

Before Harry could formulate a proper response to that much less articulate it - really, the captain of 'his' future ship was the size of a Hogwarts first year, and yet she wanted to throw stones about physical presence or lack thereof? - a significantly more massive asari who reminded Harry of Luciana's bodyguard Asteria made her way over to stand behind Allura. Resting both hands on the smaller woman's shoulders, she gave Harry a slow once-over before offering a toothy grin. "You're not the only one, Captain. Based on the dossier that the matriarch sent you, I was picturing some sort of… I don't know, maybe a cross between a krogan shaman and an asari matriarch? Well built, physically imposing, with a very mystical feel to his appearance but at the same time incredibly attractive. You know the type, where you meet them and you're not sure whether you should jump them or run away from them?"

"I believe the term you're looking for is 'scaroused', and that's the best kind of woman in the galaxy if you ask me." Breezing through the airlock and into the conversation, Luna looked Allura up and down before waving one hand dismissively. "I never thought I'd meet a blue-skinned space babe that I didn't want to shag, and yet here we are." The diminutive asari let out an affronted huff, leading Luna to pat the top of her head condescending. "I'm sure you're a wonderful shag, dearie, but you look like a twelve-year-old. A human twelve-year-old, that is. Just bluer. I'd feel like a pedophile. Or maybe an hebephile? Either way, even my sexual appetites have limits." Stepping closer, Luna lifted one of the hands resting on Allura's shoulders to her lips, kissing the back as she stared up at Allura's far larger companion. "You, on the other hand… definite scarousal material. I don't suppose you'd be willing to give us a tour of the ship, would you? Bridge, galley, your cabin..?"

Harry's eyes widened at the mental image that Luna's words elicited. While he was currently in the market for a Sylléktria to be his long-term companion and the mother of his child… Epipsychidion had cracked his hip in two places the first time they shagged and hadn't gotten much gentler over the past few months. This woman, who was more than likely a krogan Sylléktria based on her size and build? She would break him. A lot. And evidently, the massive asari shared that belief. Grinning toothily, she pulled her hand free of Luna's grasp and fisted it in the front of the blonde's jumpsuit, lifting her up off the ground so their eyes met. "You're definitely cute, but I would break you."

After hanging there for a few seconds, Luna shrugged and took the woman's head in both her hands, leaning in to press a quick kiss to her lips. "Possibly, but what's life without a little risk?" Leaning in to give the bemused asari another peck on the lips, Luna twisted in place as best she could while hanging in midair, disapparating out of the woman's hold and reappearing behind her so that she could give the asari a slap on the ass. Before her victim could even spin around to spot her, Luna apparated back to Harry's side, leaning against his side and resting her cheek on his shoulder. "Well, what do you think? I know you generally prefer hourglass figures, and she's more of a log with some very choice bumps on it, but she's got some good points. Quite obviously dominant enough for your tastes, and she's got an arse you could bounce a galleon off of and have it end up in orbit."

Harry shook his head in resigned amusement; even with Epipsychidion in their life and bed, Luna was still so very Luna. And while she'd largely - albeit not completely - given up flirting for her own benefit, that certainly didn't stop her from trying to 'help' him in his search for the perfect Sylléktria to become the fourth member of their family. "Well for starters, I don't even know her name."

"Deianeira. Deianeira T'Samados." Even as Allura continued to stare at Luna with wide eyes, Deianeira recovered from her first exposure to 'god-like' abilities a bit faster, drawing herself up proudly before inclining her head in Allura's direction. "I've been serving under Allura for the last two centuries as the grand master of the marines aboard her commands. I'll be continuing that here on the… _Marauder_… once the ship launches."

Lowering her voice in a stage whisper, Luna nudged Harry's side with her elbow. "Hear that? Neira's got practice at 'serving under' a smaller woman. All we need to do is get her a waist trainer and she'll be practically perfect by both our standards."

"She's talking about military service, Luna. Allura has been her commanding officer for two hundred years."

"They're asari, Harry. I'm pretty sure that they've been having sex together for those two hundred years."

"Is anything ever not about sex in your head?"

"Um… the majority of my personal thoughts about Allura so far. The little girl thing is evidently Neira's fetish, but it's definitely not mine." Waving off Allura and Deianeira's stuttered attempts at denials, Luna looked around curiously. "But enough of that. I'm in the mood to explore my home-to-be. Allura, I'll give you a piggyback ride if you play tour guide."

Judging by the way Allura's expression quickly shifted from startled to irritable, the elfin asari crossing her arms over her chest as she scowled at Luna petulantly, the concept wasn't unfamiliar to her. "I was born before your species accepted heliocentrism, and am less than a decade away from transitioning into a matriarch."

Luna nodded agreeably before pulling away from Harry, taking a step forward and then bending at the waist so her head was level with Allura's. "Those are both true, yes. Something else that's true: you have very short legs." That earned the blonde a faint growl from Allura. "You'll make a better guide if you aren't struggling to keep up with me the entire time. But if that's really how you want to spend your afternoon…"

After glaring at Luna for a few more seconds, Allura finally slumped and looked away. "…just out of curiosity, how long do humans live?"

"Griselda Marchbanks was something like a hundred and thirty years old when we left and still going strong."

"…and how old are you?"

"Twenty-six."

"…lovely."

* * *

"…six squads each composed of three fireteams of four marines. These women are the masters of the other five squads; if a mission needs precision rather than brute force, they'll join me in forming a makeshift commando unit to work directly with you and Luna."

Harry offered the assembled asari a smile and a wave as he surveyed them, mostly having to look up to meet their eyes because four of the five newcomers were krogan Sylléktries like Deianeira. The final squad master was roughly Harry's own height, and exhibited traits that reminded him of both Calia and Adikia. Presumably the result of a pair of Sylléktries with aithntars from two different species having a daughter together, which answered a question he'd never found a polite way to ask. Fascinating. Then something occurred to Harry and he raised an eyebrow in Deianeira's direction. "Six times three times four… isn't seventy-two marines a bit much for a single cruiser that's a glorified private yacht at this point?" Realizing a moment too late how his words might be perceived, Harry raised his hands placatingly. "No disrespect intended, ladies, I'm just wondering if your skills might be better utilized elsewhere?"

Chuckling lowly, the asari directly to Deianeira's right elbowed her superior in the ribs playfully. "Aww, isn't that cute? He actually thinks the Sylléktrion military does anything. At all. Ever." As Deianeira sighed in exasperation, the newcomer's eyes raked over Harry's body appraisingly and then she stepped forward, thrusting a hand out in his direction. "Philaenisa T'Samados. Same clan as Deianeira, no direct relation. And considering that getting you on your back would pretty much be a sure path to my own grand master posting? I think that I'm exactly where I should be right now."

"It's funny, isn't it? It feels like our entire social structure has come full circle when it comes to you, Harry." Even as a dumbfounded Harry absently shook Philaenisa's hand, another of the massive warrior women broke ranks and began to circle the two of them while eyeing him predatorily. This one… she was the asari that he'd need to keep away from Luna. Mostly because she was practically perfect according to both of their standards - confidence, dominance, nice skin tone, a definite hourglass figure even if her waist wasn't the narrowest, and the thickest, roundest arse he'd seen since arriving in the future - and that made her dangerously likely to end up grinding his pelvis into a fine powder at some point. "The matriarchy is desperate to take advantage of the deal they made with you, but was dumb enough to agree that you could pick your own lover. So now there's essentially a bounty on your bed, and the first Sylléktria to claim it will be rewarded beyond her wildest dreams."

With his hand still in Philaenisa's, Harry's ability to keep the circling asari in view was somewhat compromised but he did his best, losing her for a few seconds as she crossed behind him before peering back over his left shoulder and reacquiring her. "I, uh, wasn't aware of that. And you are? I feel like I deserve at least a name if you're going to be eyeing me like that. Possibly dinner and a show."

"Thalestris T'Samados." Thalestris finished another lap around Harry and Philaenisa, reaching out to grab his unoccupied left hand and pump it energetically. "You'll meet a lot of us here in the military; it's a Skyside clan with a long history of military service and a preference for krogan aithntars."

"For the record, the second, third, fourth, and fifth Sylléktries are looking at sizable rewards, too. And presumably any Sylléktries after them; the matriarchy really, really wants us to make babies with you." That tidbit came from the comparatively petite, salarian/quarian hybrid Sylléktria, who offered him a faint smile before gesturing first to the asari on her left, then to the one at her right, and then finally to herself. "This is Marpesia T'Sigantes and Lysippe T'Samados, both of Skyside clans. I'm Óasi Cytherea Paralía Verdes Hypatilia, the only representative of a Steelshape clan in this ship's command structure. And while I'd obviously love to be 'rewarded beyond my wildest dreams', I'm fairly certain that anyone who joins with a justicar would find me utterly uninteresting, so I'll be sitting out this asinine little competition."

While a small part of Harry wanted to point out that while he enjoyed Epipsychidion's company, she was Luna's pick for a partner rather than his and accordingly met an entirely different set of requirements… a far larger part of him was all too relieved to hear that there was at least one woman aboard the ship who wasn't out to shag him. Gently extracting his hands from Philaenisa and Thalestris's grasps, Harry turned his attention to Deianeira and arched his brow again curiously. "So, was there a point to all this apart from making it clear that I should fear for my virtue once the ship launches?"

Deianeira let out a bark of laughter at that. "Not gonna lie, part of the reason you're here is because your fiancée wanted me to present you with some possibilities since you don't seem to be making much of an effort to find a bondmate of your own." Oh. Thanks, Luna. "The bigger part, though, is because if we're going to be working with you? We need to know what you're capable of and vice versa. Which is why I asked you to meet us here in the exercise room."

Even though he wasn't sure at this point what he might possibly end up doing that would require a personal commando squad to back him up, Harry could understand the logic behind her request. According to Epipsychidion, asari soldiers were no different from any others - or members of the wizarding world - in that they shaped their personal fighting styles to accent their biotic strengths. Going into battle without knowing how the people around you fought could be awkward at best, and quite possibly deadly at worst. "Fair enough. I'd assumed that you asked to meet here because it's the first room that I've finished the charms work on. Now the workout clothes make sense."

"Actually, we normally train in full combat gear." Philaenisa grinned as she reached up to tug at the strap of her purple and gold, very human-style sports bra. "Luna got ahold of Deianeira yesterday, though, and suggested that we dress to impress for our first meeting with you. Passed along a few ideas that we fed through the fabricators before heading down. So… did it work?"

Harry sighed and shook his head in resignation. "Of course she did." A flick of his wrist had his wand jumping into his hand and then he spun on his heel, apparating to a point directly behind Hypatilia. and her taller bookends. While part of him still rebelled at the idea of hurting women, he was slowly coming to terms with the egalitarian nature of Sylléktrion society… and the knowledge that they had no such compunctions against hurting him in situations like this. Accordingly, he only hesitated for a fraction of a second before hurling a Banishing Charm into Hypatilia's back, sending her flying across the room to land face first on the grass that he'd recently added to the exercise room. "You want to impress me?" As Marpesia and Lysippe looked back and forth between where he'd been and where he was with comically wide eyes, he treated them to the same charm as Hypatilia before looking over at Philaenisa and making a beckoning gesture. "Do better than them."

Exchanging looks, Philaenisa and Thalestris made a series of gestures before coming to some sort of agreement and bursting into motion. A flash of blue light was the only warning Harry got before Philaenisa erupted out of the kanquess and into his body, the impact lifting him up off his feet. Before his back could even hit the ground, a second blue flash heralded Thalestris's contribution as she somehow managed to pass through Philaenisa and emerge from her own kanquess at a full run, slamming into Harry and driving him all the way back until he slammed into the wall, his feet dangling a few inches off to floor. "So we have the same idea of foreplay then. Good. It'll make claiming that bounty easier. And more fun."

Oh bugger.

* * *

"Dare I ask what happened?"

"Evidently Hale takes the idea of 'love bite' a bit more literally than most."

"Next time don't start something you can't finish, Harry."

Harry winced slightly as the doctor continued to prod gently at the savage bite mark on his right trapezius, blood still oozing from what he was convinced was a complete dental record imprinted in his flesh, before shooting a withering glare at the asari perched on the next exam table over. "Yes, well, if I'd known you two were serious about thinking that getting thrown around the exercise room was a form of foreplay? I would have stunned you and Nisa right out of the gate."

Lowering the bag of ice she had pressed to the right side of her face, Thalestris grimaced faintly as she slowly and deliberately arched her damaged brow. "I don't know what your Earth witch women are into, Harry, but getting knocked out to start a date is a little extreme even by our tastes." As Harry buried his face in hands with a groan, he felt something bump against his dangling foot and looked back up at Thalestris. She grinned widely before using her free hand to point up at the massive bruise on her face. "Seriously, though, you have an amazing headbutt. Didn't think you had it in you, but damn was I wrong."

"Strengthening Charm. Very hasty one, didn't know it'd taken properly until you were on the ground swearing and I was still standing. Aria's security chief Alyona used that move to catch me off-guard; figured there was a chance it might do the same to you. I was right." Harry offered her a sheepish grin before turning his head as best he could to glance back at the doctor tending to him. "Well? Can you heal it, or should I head back to my quarters and dig out a potion or two?"

Doctor Aceso Dalianis offered a derisive snort in response to the question, brushing past him as she made her way over to the cabinets and retrieved two different pieces of equipment that Harry didn't recognize. "If I couldn't treat a simple laceration or contusion, Harry, I'd be a terrible doctor. No, I find myself torn as to whether I should heal your injury fully, or just seal the flesh back up to prevent infection and then leave the mark itself to heal naturally as a reminder to look before you leap."

That elicited a snort of laughter from Thalestris, who Harry shot a warning look at before turning his attention back to Aceso. "I don't need a reminder of that because I didn't leap. There was absolutely no leaping. I was there to duel or spar or whatever you lot call two adults testing each other's abilities. She's the one who decided to take it the completely wrong way. I'm entirely innocent of any sort of leaping that would require looking first."

"I'm sure." Aceso set one of the devices down on the exam table next to Harry before powering the other up, bringing it up to his shoulder and waving it back and forth slowly. A strange tingly sensation sprung up where it passed, reminding Harry of the very potion that he'd been planning to use to heal the wound if she couldn't. It made him curious how similar modern medicine was to the wizarding treatments that he was used to, and- "While we're on the subject, though? I took the liberty of familiarizing myself with your medical history, and I can't help but notice this isn't the first - or second or third or fourth - time you've been injured by… shall we say 'amorous activities'… since you and Luna joined the Collective. I think it's time that we had a nice long talk about safe sexual practices, both in terms of enjoying biotic partners as a whole and enduring the rigors of mating with specific strains of Sylléktria in particular…"

Oh, for fuck's sake…


End file.
